


Friends Protect People (and boyfriends protect even better)

by eating_custardinbed



Series: A Helping Hand [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drugs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, John Whump, M/M, References to Drugs, Sherlock Whump, Triggers, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2019-10-18 10:41:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17579339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eating_custardinbed/pseuds/eating_custardinbed
Summary: SEQUEL TO 'Acid Spills, a Sprained Wrist and an Explanation'There's a new case!!! It's a complicated one too, and the boys are happy they've finally got something to test themselves with. However, there will be bumps along the way, and it will test them to their very limits. Will the detective and his blogger even live to see the end of the year?Who knows?PART OF THE "A Helping Hand" SERIES





	1. A Body Drop and the Contents of the Bespoke Box

Sometimes, John really did wonder how they got themselves into these situations.

These thoughts didn't come often, but when they did, it was frequently when they were standing over a hauntingly recognisable and undamaged dead body. Of course, he never brought this up with Sherlock, as the detective would only have taken the statement literally and recounted their entire time together, not really something the army doctor was in the mood for.

"It's incredible," Molly said, shaking her head. When John, who had been focusing intently on the metal table, looked up at her with an alarmed expression, she began to furiously backtrack. "No, what I meant was-"

"What am I doing here, Lestrade?" the consulting detective interrupted, sounding irritated. John could tell he was getting agitated by the way his fingers curled and his nostrils flared. "There's nothing remotely wrong with this body, you've dragged John and I from our nice, warm flat for sod all!"

"That's the point," Lestrade replied; John could see him holding in some sort of joke that probably ran somewhere along the lines of  _ yeah, away from each other, more like _ . He was grinning like the cat who'd just caught the cream. Sherlock's eyes narrowed.

"Get to where you're going with this, Graham, and get there fast," he said. He sounded suspicious.

"It's Greg, and the body's supposed to be perfect," Lestrade retorted, still smirking. "The killer's trying to throw up off the scent."

"You couldn't have thought of that by yourself. Did my brother help you with this? You've been seeing a suspicious amount of each other these past few weeks."

John knew he probably should have stepped in at that point, but he was too busy holding in a snort at that final comment and the way the DI was stammering rather uselessly.

"Post-mortem didn't reveal much," Molly cut in, saving Lestrade from further embarrassment. "Peak physical condition for a 21-year-old female vegan."

Lestrade shook his head sadly.

"Imagine living your entire life without having a good bacon sarnie," he said morosely. "Poor bugger. As if being murdered wasn't bad enough."

"Your feelings towards vegans aside, Inspector, what do we know about Miss Perfectly-Healthy?" Sherlock asked. He was interested now. Leaning forward. Hands clasped on the edge of the icy cold metal.

"Her name's Ella Dwyer-Simons," Molly replied. "Studying biochemistry at King's College. Crazy-rich family, proper old money- landowners and such. Parents were paying for her accommodation  _ and  _ her bills. Cause of death appears to be a massive heart attack."

"Did she not exercise? Or was she eating sneaky family buckets round the back of KFC?"

Sherlock claimed not to understand humour, but he could be quite funny when he wanted to be. 

"According to her social media, she was always in the gym," Molly answered, pulling up a picture on her phone and turning it for Sherlock to see. "And again, no evidence of any secret fried chicken."

"So, what was it?" Sherlock said as he squinted at the pictures. "Tox screening?"

"Negative. For everything."

Molly went over to where the body's feet were. They were covered by the trademark white sheet. With care and precision, the pathologist gently lifted one edge up to reveal a pasty foot. The nails were a bright pink, starkly contrasting with the mottled skin. Molly then carefully parted the first two toes, a difficult task now rigor mortis had set in. Sherlock came round to join her, and John couldn't help but notice how the detective gently brushed his fingers against John's, their pinkies clinging to each other's for no more than a mere second. That was all, though. A second. Then it was back to work.

Sherlock leant in close to the toes, so close that the edge of his nose was brushing the sole of the foot. His eyes were squinted, slightly crossed. They lit up with excitement of a small child on Christmas morning.

"A needle mark," he said simply.

"Our theory so far is that someone waited for her to fall asleep and then injected her with either an untraceable poison or a massive dose of air," Lestrade explained.

"The air would travel up the aorta and block the smaller vessels or one of the valves," Molly continued. "I think you know the rest."

"This is just fantastic!" Sherlock chuckled, seizing Molly by the shoulders and kissing her on the cheek. "Lestrade, I'll take the case. Drop the files at Baker Street."

Even now, having known Sherlock for nearly eight years, it still baffled John how the man could just sweep out of places without a care in the world. John often found himself hurrying along after him, goodbyes and hurried apologies flying backwards from his lips.

"You didn't even say goodbye!" John hissed in Sherlock's ear as they walked (well, Sherlock walked and John jogged) down the corridor, at least, he tried to. He had to keep jumping up a little bit in order for it to be effective.

"Why should I?" Sherlock replied, seemingly indifferent.

"Um, because it's polite?"

"Polite, polite's boring."

John shook his head in sheer disbelief as they approached the entrance/exit of New Scotland Yard. He decided that he would've appreciated Sherlock's height when he saw what could only be described as the sea of people who were trying to hail cabs. Their various antics over the years meant that very few cabs would take Sherlock Holmes and John Watson together: on his own, John had no problems, but Sherlock had found it near-impossible since the pig-and-spear incident. Luckily for them, their regular cabbie was parked up, and after a promise of a doubled payment and  _ no severed heads this time, Benji, and I'm not lying,  _ they set off towards Baker Street.

"You know what I fancy when we get home?" John announced as his stomach rumbled hungrily. "Beans on toast."

Sherlock crinkled his nose. Whilst adorable, it was the one look John loathed a little, as it often meant one thing:

"Not hungry," he murmured, and he turned his gaze outside to the sights of modern-day London.

"Come on, Sherlock!" John exclaimed. "You haven't eaten properly in a good four days, and that apple you took half a bite of and immediately spat out on Tuesday doesn't count."

"You can't force-feed me," Sherlock shot back.

"I can, and I will, if it becomes necessary," John replied. "I may give up easily on the bloody Sudoku in the newspaper, but this is one battle I am determined to win."

The detective sighed in world-weary way, his hand crawling across the seat to brush against John's. The army doctor's cheeks flushed, but he took Sherlock's hand anyway.

"Eat," he whispered. "Please. For me."

Instantly, Sherlock's face softened and he raised their joint hands and gently pressed his lips to them.

"Okay," he whispered. "But only for you."

John grinned at him, feeling almost smug at his ability to make Sherlock do virtually anything.

"So, what's this with your brother and Lestrade?" he asked teasingly. Sherlock's face scrunched up in slight disgust and he chuckled nervously.

"Trust me, it's something I'm trying my very best to delete," he murmured.

"What, like Greg's name?"

"Who?"

John rolled his eyes.

"Now you're just making it up," he said. "Lestrade, Sherlock. The guy who just gave you the case?"

"I really don't understand why everyone's so obsessed with me learning Gavin's name," Sherlock mused, his grip on John's hand unconsciously tightening. "I mean, I know the first letter. Isn't that enough?"

"Sherlock, love?" John said, making the detective turn to him. The army doctor was squirming a little, pain flashing across his face every so often. Sherlock was instantly concerned, his free hand flying up to rest on John's cheek.

"What is it?" he asked, his voice soft.

"You're crushing my hand."

Sherlock let out a small  _ oh! _ and released John's hand as quickly as he could, watching as the army doctor hissed in pain and slowly flexed his fingers.

"I'm sorry," Sherlock said miserably. He looked as if he was about to cry, his eyes glued to the dirty floor of the cab and his bottom lip trembling ever-so-slightly.

"Oh, love, there's nothing to be sorry for," John replied quickly in the most soothing voice he could muster. "You didn't mean to."

Sherlock didn't reply. He didn't have to, as the cab pulled to an abrupt stop, sending the smaller of the two flying suddenly forward. Luckily, because he was facing Sherlock, his fall was cushioned, but John still ended up with his head hitting Sherlock square in the chest, which in turn sent the detective crashing backwards. John winced at the small  _ crunch  _ as Sherlock's back collided with the hard plastic arm rest on the door.

John felt the detective take a sharp intake of breath and heard the long and colourful string of expletives coming from Benji's mouth.

"Bloody idiot!" he distinctly heard. "Get your kids under control!"

John pulled himself up, his fingers scrabbling at the front of Sherlock's jacket. When he managed to get upright again, he saw the detective was braced against the door, breathing slightly shakily through his nose. His eyes were closed.

"Oh my God, are you okay?" John asked hurriedly. He knew from previous experience (along with the memory of the nastily sprained arm he had sustained) not to touch Sherlock when he was in this state. As the detective had explained inbetween his apologies as they sat in the waiting room in St Bart's A&E, he went into a sort of trance which helped him control the pain. John didn't quite understand how, but this method seemed to work (Sherlock had just spilled acid all over his hand when the first incident had occurred), so he decided not to question it.

"I'm fine," came Sherlock's quiet, baritone voice. The tips of his index and middle fingers were resting gently on his temples, and the entire atmosphere around him was tense. "Nothing more than a bruise."

"Are you sure? I mean, I could-"

"You shouldn't worry so much, John. It really is unbecoming on such a handsome face."

John felt his cheeks heat up. His fingers tightened around the fabric of Sherlock's blazer as he rested his head on the detective's shoulder, sighing contentedly.

"I love you," he murmured.

"I love you too," Sherlock replied gently, slipping his arm around the army doctor. In turn, John tucked himself neatly in the gap, leaning against Sherlock's body, his arms snugly around the taller man's waist.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked.

"I promise you that I am okay," Sherlock said as the cab began to move off again. "I've just got a new case."

"Which means you won't eat or sleep and will barely talk for the duration of the entire thing," John grumbled.

"You know it helps me to think," Sherlock muttered.

"But you need to look after yourself."

"I will!"

"You say that every time."

Sherlock leant down and softly rubbed their noses together in an Eskimo kiss, chuckling deeply as he pressed their lips together, one hand coming up to rest on the back of John's head. The army doctor melted into the kiss, leaning up to meet his boyfriend in the middle.

"I love you so much," he murmured through the kiss.

Sherlock giggled a little, breaking off the kiss and resting their foreheads against one another's.

"I'll behave," he said simply.

"You're Sherlock Holmes," John retorted, running his tongue over his lips. "You never behave."

"Only part of my charm, my dear Watson."

They laughed again as the cab drew to a stop outside of 221B.

"Sorry for the bumpy ride, guys," Benji the cabbie said as he turned to them.

"Don't worry about it," John replied warmly. "How much do we owe you?"

"It's all on the account," Benji said. "See you around!"

Thanking him, the two scrambled out of the cab and slipped into the flat. Mrs Hudson interrupted them as soon as the walked through the door. Sherlock let out a heavy sigh, his eyes glancing upwards.

"Sherlock Holmes, you will be the death of me!" she exclaimed, shaking her head as she came towards them, wooden spoon in one hand and soapy sponge in the other. "Do you know what I found when I went in your cutlery drawer this morning?"

"Oh, so you discovered the needles?" Sherlock said offhandedly. He didn't seem at all fussed. John, however, turned to him with wide eyes, his hand tightening around Sherlock's wrist.

"Sherlock," he said, sounding calm and even. Sherlock could tell that he was fuming. "I want you to answer me honestly, okay? What were those needles for?"

"The needles are for me to pith some frogs," Sherlock replied, his own tone just as calm. "Don't worry, I have a licence. I made Mycroft get me one after the whole Sherrinford incident. He's been much nicer to me since all that. Anyway, the frogs are in a box under a lamp in the cupboard. I put air holes in the box. I was going to put them in the bath, but then I remembered what happened with the water snakes and decided not to bother."

John shook his head incredulously. His hand relaxed a little, but stayed clamped around Sherlock's wrist.

"You understand that I will be searching the entire flat, though?" the army doctor.

"Go ahead. You won't find anything."

The army doctor's eyebrow arched, and he thanked Mrs Hudson before dragging the detective upstairs, pushing him into his green armchair.

"Sit there, and don't move," he warned, pulling out his phone and putting it to his ear.

"Who are you calling?" Sherlock asked, sounding a little nervous.

"Well, it won't matter if there's nothing to find," John replied, his tone a little accusing. "Will it?"

"John, I should probably tell you..."

John lowered the phone and came over to Sherlock, squatting down so that he was at eye level with his boyfriend.

"It's alright," he said gently, one hand resting on top of Sherlock's shaking one. "You can tell me. I won't be mad."

"There's a box under my bed. It contains a few sachets of cocaine, some packaged needles and a Turkish razor. In case I ever get terribly desperate."

He said all of this in a flat, dead voice, his eyes not meeting John's, not even looking at John at all, the entire time. "I'm sorry."

"No, you don't have to apologise," John said hurriedly. "You didn't use any of it, did you?"

"The last time I used was the night after Sherrinford," Sherlock admitted, hanging his head a little. "There were so many emotions, the onslaughts of painful memories... I just wanted my brain to be quiet for an hour or so. I haven't so much as reached for that box since."

"You should've told me you were feeling like that," John said. He got up from the floor before pulling Sherlock over to the sofa and sitting next to him, letting the detective lean on him. "Whenever you feel like that, you know you can always talk to me about it. I'll always be here for you."

The detective blushed a little, but nodded anyhow.

"That's all I have," he said. "I promise."

"I believe you, Sherlock," said John. He sounded tired, almost worn down. "Where did you say it was?"

Sherlock didn't reply, instead simply getting up and going to his bedroom. John followed, curious. The detective flattened himself on his stomach and crawled under his bed, his slender arms reaching out for the slimline polished oak box, which was nestled under blankets and some of his old photo albums. Resisting the urge to show John the pictures of Lady Bracknell (he had many: he'd even run out of film on his precious Polaroid camera that day), he grabbed the box and wriggled out. He held the box up to John from where he was lying on the floor.

"Could've just told me," John said as he eagerly snatched the box from Sherlock, sliding it open and examining the contents closely. "Je-e-esus, Sherl."

The detective, having now propped himself up on his elbows, looked around the room, trying to find anything,  _ anything  _ to distract himself. Nothing jumped out at him, so he settled for staring unwaveringly into John's icy blue eyes.

"Okay, that's creepy now," John said, perturbed.

"I'm sorry, was I staring?" Sherlock replied, shaking himself back to reality.

"Yeah, just a bit."

The detective smiled a little, pulling himself up to stand next to John. Sighing, the army doctor tipped the contents of the bespoke box onto the bed and stood in front of Sherlock, arms folded. 

"Right," he said. "Talk me through it, then."

"Well, um..." Sherlock said, coming forward and fingering the small baggie of white powder. With the touch came the familiar urge, the longing that every day he had to banish to the deepest, furthest depths of his mind palace. Before the feeling could overwhelm him, he dropped the bag.

"The sachets contain Colombian cocaine," he said. "Seven bags, 10 grams per bag. Four syringes, all brand-new and sealed. Flip-out Turkish razor, stainless steel and surprisingly sharp. Lastly, cigarettes and a lighter."

He listed all of this in a flat, dead voice, his eyes never leaving John's. He watched as the blogger's face fell, and both were silent.

"So," John finally said. "Seventy grams of coke, multiple sharps and cigarettes?"

"That is correct."

"And that's it? That's all you've got, in the flat and anywhere else?"

"That's it, I promise."

John eyed Sherlock skeptically, but nodded all the same, collecting everything up again and stowing the box in his pocket.

"Well, thank you for telling me, anyway," he said. "Better than the cavalry arriving and finding it." 

The two traipsed back into the living room, and John disappeared downstairs, presumably to hide/destroy the box. Sherlock unconsciously rolled up his sleeve and began to scratch his arm, right at the crook of his elbow. Oh, how he longed for the sweet rush of drugs through his system, placating his mind and keeping it at bay. The needle sliding under his skin, the cold flush as the cocaine/heroin/insert-drug-here (he wasn't fussy) hit his veins. He missed it. He wanted it. He wanted it so  _ badly.  _ He wasn't sure why this had come along so suddenly, with no rhyme or reason, but he was riding the wave of the urge like a stumbling beginner. 

He needs drugs, and he needed them  _ now.  _

The scratching had become worse, and ice-cold beads of sweat were starting to trickle down the back of his neck. Eyes darting backwards and forwards, as if looking for something hidden in plain sight. He glanced towards the door, the stairs: no signs of movement. Maybe, if he locked himself in the bathroom and barricaded the door, he could climb out of the window and be gone before John got back upstairs, or at least before he got the door open. He was drawing blood now, particularly over the old, faded track marks and the ones from the Smith case, still less than a year ago. 

Absent-mindedly, he tugged at his collar and began to walk towards the bathroom. £1000, all of it in cash… that had to be enough for some decent coke, right? Maybe some speed, too. LSD had never really appealed to him before, but he felt like a bit of a rush, a pick-me-up… The one thing he utterly refused to buy, however, was smack. No smack. At all. Reaching the doorway, he quickly darted to the kitchen and grabbed the packaged syringes from the drawer. If he'd learnt one thing, it was that you should always bring your own syringes. Also, never shoot up with a faulty light source. Always a bad idea. 

There was more noise from downstairs. Quick and quiet as a mouse, Sherlock slipped into the bathroom, locking the door behind himself. Looking around, he decided that the best course of action would be to drag the heavy drawers over from the corner and lean them against the door. Given John's stamina, this was a decidedly weak plan, but it was better than nothing, wasn't it? 

“I'm sorry, John,” he whispered as he dragged the drawers to the door. The window was open, thank God, and he undid the latch with ease, propping it open as far as it would go. 

John was coming up the stairs. 

“Sherlock?” the army doctor called, evidently at the top of the stairs. There was no time to lose now. He clambered up on the side, swinging his leg out of the window. The air was biting cold. 

John was knocking on the door now. He swung his other leg over, so he was effectively sitting on the edge of the window. He looked backwards only for a moment before lowering himself carefully down onto the metal stairs and dropping into the alleyway behind 221B. 

He'd done it. He'd actually done it. He let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding, rolling down his sleeve as he did so. He still had his Belstaff on, and he put his hand in his pockets, running down away from the viewpoint of the window. The map in his head told him that it was two lefts, three rights and then straight ahead. He sent a quick text to Wiggins:  _ Leicester Square, 10 minutes.  _

Hang on… why was he walking? It would only take longer, and every second spent travelling was another second in which he could get caught. The tube would be much quicker. He made a U-turn, looking left and right before getting lost in the crown of Chinese tourists heading en-masse for the tube station. 

He'd done this before: he knew the routine. Buy a brand-new Oyster card, pay for it in cash. Top up with a fiver. Make the way down to the platform with the train heading towards Leicester Square. 

It was only once he was on the platform that he suddenly remember that his phone was still on him. He'd learnt the hard way that Mycroft could easily track it. Taking it from his pocket, he turning it over in his hand with a tinge of sadness and nostalgia. He'd miss this one. Taking a deep breath, he took a few steps forwards, and then pretended to stumble. 

Somebody, he wasn't sure who, grabbed the back of his coat before he was sent catapulting onto the rails. He was yanked back just in time, and watched as his phone was crushed under the wheels of the tube carriage. 

“No, no, no, no, no,” he stammered, turning to the small, white-haired woman who had ‘saved’ him. “That was my wife texting, she's just gone into labour!” 

A quick lie, but a good one. The woman gave him a sympathetic smile, gesturing to the train. 

“Tell her congratulations,” she said. “But I'm sure your wife would rather have you safe and sound for the birth of your child for the sake of a text message, hm?” 

He offered her a seemingly watery smile, thanking her profusely as he backed into the tube carriage. It was packed, and he smirked. Perfect. To allay any suspicions and to stop himself from being recognised as easily, he flipped his collar down. If he'd had time, he would have straightened his hair as well. But y'know. 

Now, ordinarily, Sherlock would avoid the tube like the plague. It was simply too much information bombarding him all at once. He used to get terrible migraines if he went on it, before he knew how to cope with everything. Even now, his temples were beginning to throb a little as he deduced that the woman opposite him had undiagnosed hepatitis. The train carriage rattled to life and began to move towards Leicester Square. 

The urge was becoming stronger now. He clenched and unclenched his fist, already imagining the sharp pull of the needle under his skin. Leaning his head back, he sighed deeply. Ten minutes. Less than that, actually. That's all he was going to have to wait. He was suddenly a little disappointed that his phone was smashed on the tracks of the Bakerloo line, but some situations couldn't be helped. However, John had probably notified his brother by now, so even CCTV cameras were a danger. No matter. Crack dens didn't have CCTV. 

He wanted to talk to John now. He wanted to tell him how awfully sorry he was, whilst he was still coherent. He wanted to tell him that none of this was made to hurt him. Thus was just him, Sherlock Holmes, giving in to his inexplicable, self-destructive needs. 

He sighed again. There was no use pitying himself. That never did anyone any good. Soon, though, he wouldn't have to worry, or even think, because he could lean back into the rush the drugs would give him. He smirked. 

“Now arrived at Leicester Square station,” the intercom announced. Sherlock jumped up, and was off the carriage as soon as the doors opened. He sprinted up the concrete steps, only pausing to swipe his Oyster card at the barrier. When he emerged out of the station, the sunlight hitting his eyes made him wince and stagger a little. Getting his bearings, he spotted Wiggins loitering by an alley, his beady eyes shifting from side to side. Sherlock made a beeline for him. 

“Alright, Shezza?” Billy said as soon as the detective reached him. 

“Cocaine,” Sherlock demanded. No fannying about anymore. “Speed. LSD. You know how much.” 

Wiggins nodded. 

“You wanna come up to the flat?” 

“Of course.” 

Wiggins lead him down the dark, dingy alleyway. There was a large, rusted metal door, and Wiggins looked out onto the street before rapping one, two, three times. A slot of metal at eye level slid open, a pair of brown, narrowed eyes peering out at them suspiciously. Sherlock stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down. 

“Wot?” the person behind the door said. 

“Coke, speed, LSD,” Wiggins said. “You remember Shezza, don't cha?” 

The eyes narrowed a little further before the plate was slammed shut, the lock clicked and the door slowly creaked open. 

The two dropped inside, and the heavy door slammed behind them. The cloaked, brown-eyed figure lead them down so many dark corridors that Sherlock lost count. Finally, they reached a room, and the cloaked person stood aside. Sherlock thanked them and walked inside, leaving Wiggins to negotiate the giving of the drugs. 

The room was drafty, dominated by mould. A squalid, dank mattress sat in the middle of the room, and Sherlock went and sat on the edge of it, getting himself acquainted with the room. Wiggins came in a minute or so later, handing him two small packets of white powder and four pills, two small and round, two large and rectangular. A mirror came out as well, alone with a lighter. 

Sherlock shed his coat as he looked over the drugs. He decided to start with one of the bags of coke, snorting. Absentmindedly, he tossed Wiggins a few hundred quid as he cut the coke into lines with his credit card. Lowering his head, he closed off a nostril and snorted one, two, three, four lines in a row. 

“Police!” 


	2. Something Blowing Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you are, my pretties! Chapter 2! Chapter 3 coming soon (hopefully)

_...one, two, three, four lines in a row.  _

_ “Police!”  _

“Oh come  _ on _ !” Sherlock screamed as the room around him spun, the drugs hitting his bloodstream almost immediately. That voice… he recognised that voice, he thought as he lay back on the mattress. For the life of him, though, he couldn't tell you where from. He felt excited, bouncy, energetic: yet lethargic, tired, as if his eyelids were weighed down by a thousand tonnes. He looked languidly to the door. Police officers, decked out in full riot gear. They had rifles and everything. 

It was then that he connected the voice with a person. 

Had that cocaine had something mixed in with it. It didn't usually make him feel like this. He tried to struggle to his feet, but he only managed to make it to his knees before he fell back again. 

“L'st'de...” he tried to call. One police officer poked their head round the corner: Donovan. 

“Freak?” she said, her nose crinkling. She sounded disgusted. Shocked. “Why the  _ hell  _ are you here?” 

“Help…” he managed to choke out as he rolled onto his side. “Please.” 

She looked perturbed, saying something to her colleague behind her before venturing into the room. She wasn't in riot gear, just her normal pant suit. Kneeling down next to him, she lifted his eyelid with a gentleness he didn't realised she possessed. She promptly dropped her hand from his face the second she saw his blown-out pupil, pity and appall fighting for dominance on her face. She reached for her radio. 

“Greg? Upstairs, the fourth room on the left. Need your help… no, don't send Davies. I need you. Alright, thanks.” 

Greg? Who was Greg? He gave Sally a curious look, though it was more pained if anything else. His surroundings kept shifting, left to right and then back again. He screwed his eyes shut and opened them again slowly, but it didn't help. Now he could just see two of everything. 

“Yeah, alright, Lestrade's coming,” Sally said, or at least the left Sally said, sounding sort of annoyed. Had he been talking? He must have been. 

What had he taken again? All of a sudden, he remembered the agreement; or, more, accurately, he remembered that he'd broken the agreement. 

“List,” he mumbled. “List.” 

“What's he saying?” 

Oh, that was Lestrade, wasn't it? He looked up as best he could, squinting at the door. Sure enough, there the silver-haired Yarder stood, wavering in Sherlock's vision. Lestrade came forward, his brow furrowed in concern as he knelt down next to Sally. He rested his hand on Sherlock's cheek, slapping gently in an attempt to bring the detective out of his half-comatose state. 

“Mate,” the DI said. His East London accent was comfortingly familiar. “What are you tryna say? C'mon, mate, help us out.” 

Sherlock frowned at him, shuddering. 

“List,” he stammered out. 

“You made a list?” 

That was voiced by Sally. Sherlock shook his head frantically. 

“You didn't make one?” Lestrade asked. Sherlock nodded slowly, apparently exhausted by his previous outburst of energy. “That's unusual for you.” 

“‘M sorry.” 

“No, no, don't worry about it,” the Yarder said quickly. “I need to know what you took, though, mate, and how much.” 

Sherlock fumbled at the side of the mattress, his fingers searching for the other sachet. It took him a while to find it, and he groaned deeply as his hands shook madly. Once he managed to find it, he handed it clumsily to the DI. 

“What's this?” Lestrade asked. “Coke?” 

“Mm,” Sherlock said, nodding a little. 

“Did you inject it or snort it?” 

Sherlock, taking what seemed like a tremendous amount of effort, raised two fingers, which dropped quickly back onto his lap. 

“Snorting?” Sally said. The detective gave her what was supposed to be a withering look, but it was very weak. 

“Cocaine doesn't normally do this,” Lestrade said, sounding worried. Wiggins, who was being led past the door, heard what Lestrade was saying and strained against the cuffs an officer had him in. The constable pulled him back, but Lestrade called for him to stand down, recognising Wiggins from Sherlock's previous excursions. When Wiggins saw the state Sherlock was in, his face blanched. 

“‘E musta got the tranquilizer stuff,” he stammered. “Ah told ‘em not to give ‘im them.” 

Lestrade shot him a poisonous look and waved the constable on. 

“Tranquilizer, Sherl,” the DI said once Wiggins had been pulled away, shaking his head. “Probably horse stuff, knowing these scumbags. John's going to be worried sick. Where's your phone?” 

Sherlock looked slowly up at him. 

“Tube,” he murmured. 

“You left it on the tube?” 

The detective made a sluggish motion with his hands. They seemed to indicate something blowing up. 

“What do you mean?” Sally asked. Lestrade groaned, clearly having just understood the gesture. 

“You threw it under the tube again?” he asked, and Sherlock nodded. “You were bloody determined this time, weren't you?” 

“Didn't want to upset John,” Sherlock said. It was the first coherent thing he'd said since the two Yarders had entered the room. “Didn't want him to be angry.” 

“Oh, Sherlock…” Lestrade murmured, his eyes softening. “He won't be angry. I promise.” 

Lestrade, in fact, knew that John would be extremely pissed, and once Sherlock was all sobered up, he was in for a right bollocking. It was best, however, for the detective to be soothed for now in order to keep him talking to them. 

“He will,” Sherlock insisted, shaking his head fiercely. “He will be.” 

“He won't, and I'll prove it to you right now,” Lestrade said, pulling out his phone and dialling a number. They picked up on the first ring. “John, hey!” 

“Greg,” John said. He sounded panicked. “Do you-” 

“I've got Sherlock here with me,” Lestrade replied. Even over the phone, Lestrade could hear John's muffled sigh of relief. “Look, I'm just gonna give you a heads-up, he did take something. Snorted coke, coke that he didn't realise some bastard drug dealer ground up horse tranquilizer into.” 

“Is he okay?” 

“We'll, he's obviously pretty out of it, but he's worried you'll be mad,” Lestrade said. John began to speak, but he cut him off, lowering his voice. “Look, I know you're pissed at him. I'm pissed at him too, but I'd rather keep him co-operative right now, so if you could just, y'know, sweeten him up a bit I can have him back at Baker Street in half an hour.” 

John was quiet for a few moments, considering the offer. 

“Fine,” he replied. “But why hasn't he been texting me?” 

“Threw his phone under the tube,” Lestrade said quickly before clearing his throat and very audibly helping Sherlock sit up and holding the phone to his ear. It was way too familiar to the scenes of old, the scenes he thought were behind him. He shook himself, one arm around Sherlock keeping him upright. 

“John?” Sherlock croaked out, his voice cracking and trembling. 

“Hey, Sherlock,” John replied gently, trying his best to sound soothing and mot seriously pissed off. “You daft sod, what’ve you managed this time?” 

“Are you mad?” 

“No, no,” John said, a little too quickly. If Sherlock had had his inhibitions about him, he would've been suspicious, but his mind was significantly dulled. “Just scared for you.” 

“Don't be scared,” Sherlock slurred as he slumped to the side a little. “‘M fine.” 

“You sound a bit out of it, love.” 

“Maybe a bit.” 

John let out a small, hollow giggle. 

“You fancy coming home any time soon?” he asked, seemingly teasing but deadly serious. “Promise there are cuddles in for you if you do.” 

Lestrade had to stifle a laugh at that one, and he could almost feel John's glare boring into his skull from across London. 

“M'kay,” Sherlock said. His eyelids were starting to droop. “Love you.” 

“I love you too,” John replied. “I'll see you in a bit.” 

Sherlock, already half-asleep, didn't hear that last part. 

The army doctor and the DI chatted for another couple of minutes, arranging timings and monitoring and such. It was a protocol that, in theoretical terms, they were overly familiar with, but they hadn't had cause to put it into action for a while. 

If they were honest, it wasn't the drugs use that troubled them. It was the demons that had drove him to it. 

888888

Just as Lestrade had predicted, they were at Baker Street about half an hour after the phone call to John. The army doctor was waiting for them at the front door. His arms were folded across his chest, and he was tapping his foot as he chewed the side of his lip in a nervous manner. He watched silently as Lestrade hauled the inebriated detective out of the police car. 

“But, you see, we can't know that this is the murderer's first victim,” Sherlock was saying. He sounded surprisingly alert (that was probably the  _ actual  _ cocaine kicking in) but his voice was slurred and if the DI hadn't been holding him upright, he would've been slumped on the pavement. John raised an eyebrow: was Sherlock really still thinking about the case? “I always say, with serial killers, you have to wait for them to make a mistake. What if this one was careful? Only choosing victims at random, those whom it would be believable to have a heart attack? We aren't looking for motive: we're looking for pure evil.” 

“Great, I think I got about half of that, mate,” Lestrade said tiredly, wincing under the glare of the streetlight. Despite the fact that it was only half five in the evening, the sun had already set and frost was beginning to settle on the walls and the windows. John offered him a weak smile, hooking an arm under the detective's shoulder and taking him from the DI. 

“Here we are again,” John said, smiling humourlessly. 

“Sorry, John,” Lestrade replied, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “If I'd known he was there-” 

“God, no, I didn't mean it like that,” John interrupted quickly. “It's okay, really. It's not your fault.” 

“Neither is it your's,” the DI reminded him. 

“And it's not his,” John said, jerking his head in a spaced-out Sherlock's general direction. “Who knows whose fault it is? I'll take him off your hands now anyway.” 

Lestrade nodded, scratching his ear before shoving his hands in his pockets, trying to protect them from the biting cold. John, in only a jumper and a pair of jeans, was shivering madly. 

“If you need a hand, with anything at all, just give me a ring,” Lestrade urged, checking his watch. “Look, I've gotta go and write up a dozen or so arrest reports, but if you need me…” 

“Yeah, yeah,” John said, waving the DI on. Lestrade gave the pair a small smile and left them to it, speeding off down the road towards New Scotland Yard. 

“What am I going to do with you, Sherlock Holmes?” John wondered aloud, leading said man into the flat. The detective, who hadn't said a word to John since he had arrived, nearly tripped over the doormat and let out a string of colourful expletives as John caught him before he toppled onto his face. 

“I'm sorry,” he mumbled as John gently unwound his scarf from his neck and helped him out of his coat. 

“I know you are,” John said tiredly, sending a furtive glance towards the stairs. “Geez, this is going to be interesting.”

Sherlock just about managed to follow John's line of sight, groaning a little when his eyes hit the stairs. Taking a deep breath, he rested the tips of his fingers to his temples, presumably to harness his mind palace. Out of the blue, he broke away from John and bounded up the stairs. The minute he reached the top, all of his energy seemed to leave him and he slumped against the wall, his knees buckling beneath him and sending him to the floor. 

John came running after him, helping him up again and checking he was okay. 

“Reminds me of the Irene Adler case, he said as a way of conversation. Too tired to speak, Sherlock cocked his head. “When we got you back, you were a bit like this.” 

“I'm sorry,” Sherlock managed to say again. 

“You can stop apologising, Sherlock. I know you're sorry, and this wasn't your fault,” John said distractedly as he checked the detective's pupils. 

“How?” 

John dropped his hand away from Sherlock's face in surprise, giving him a startled look. 

“You want to know… how it wasn't your fault,” he said. This was more of a statement than a question, and Sherlock nodded in response. “Right. Well, um…” 

Instead of answering that complicated little ethical conundrum, John hauled Sherlock up and pulled him into the bedroom, helping him gently down onto the bed. 

“I'll explain when you're feeling better,” he whispered, placing a gentle kiss on the top of Sherlock's head before going over to the door and flicking the lights off. “Just give me a shout if you need anything.” 

The detective was already flat-out, and John knew exactly what was going to happen next. He had had experience with this before. There was one thing he had to take care of first, though. 

Taking a deep breath, he leant against the closed door, staring at his illuminated phone screen for a long time, staring at the contact name. He cast a quick glance back at the bedroom door before making his way into the living room and hitting dial, holding the phone to his ear. 

“Mycroft? I think you might need to send your boys down.” 

888888

Mycroft Holmes had many different responsibilities, ranging from organising suicide missions to making sure the higher ranks always got their morning tea, but having to root through his little brother's tip of a flat for drugs was definitely one of h8s least favourites. 

And he wasn't even the one who had to do the rooting. 

He was stood with John in the small kitchen, drinking a cup of hastily-made, quite frankly mediocre tea from a mug that read  _ Bootylicious _ . Apparently that was the only clean one left. John said all the others Sherlock was using to culture mould growths for one experiment or another. As truthful as that statement sounded, Mycroft still knew that if Gregory caught him with this mug he would never live it down. 

“Sorry about the mess,” John said he sipped his own tea. He was leaning against the counter, his eyes sweeping over the flat over and over again. “If I'd known I'd have to call in the drug squad, I would've had a bit of tidy.” 

“It's quite alright, Dr Watson,” Mycroft said, twiddling with his umbrella. John opened his mouth to say something, but Mycroft cut him off. “John, sorry. Old habits die hard. Anyhow, you live with Sherlock Holmes. This is hardly comparable to the great wardrobe debacle of ‘94.” 

“I can only imagine,” John laughed. 

Their small conservation was broken up when there was a small crash, and a pitiful call of 

“John?” echoed down the corridor. The army doctor sighed, placing down his cup. 

“Duty calls,” he said. Mycroft gave him a grim smile and moved to let him walk past. 

As he walked towards the bedroom, John realised that he had no bloody idea what lay behind that door. Knowing Sherlock, if could be anything from a shattered lamp to a fractured femur. John, not really fancying a trip to hospital, prayed that it wasn't the latter. 

“You alright?” he said as he opened the door. 

Sherlock, predictably, was on the floor. He was staring up at the ex-soldier with bleary, unfocused eyes. His pupils were still blown wide. 

“Did we catch the murderer?” Sherlock asked. He sounded almost childish. John squatted down next to him. 

“What murderer, love?” he asked. 

“The Covent Garden beheading,” the detective said, seeming confused that John didn't know what he was talking about. 

“I think you might have been dreaming.” 

“There was magic and ghosts and all sorts…” Sherlock yawned, rubbing his eyes on the back of his hand. When his eyes hit John, a smile broke out on his face. 

“Love you,” he murmured. 

“I know,” John said as he slipped his hands under Sherlock's armpits and hauled him onto the bed. Arranging the blankets, John pressed a gentle kiss to Sherlock's forehead. “Sleep it off. You'll feel better in the morning.” 

The detective, despite his exhaustion, sat up in indignation, whimpering a little to get his flatmate's attention. John sighed heavily, turning back to him. “Yes?” 

“Don't you love me too?” 

The army doctor laughed a little, coming away from the door and sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“That's a bit of a stupid question, isn't it?” he said gently. “One that I'm sure you can answer yourself.” 

“I want to hear it from you,” Sherlock replied. “It's always better from you.” 

“Okay,” John said. He took Sherlock's hand and softly caressed it, keeping his eyes fixed on the detective's. “I, John Hamish Watson, love you, William Sherlock Scott Holmes, for all that you were, are and ever will be for as long as I physically, mentally and emotionally can. Nothing, and I mean  _ nothing,  _ will ever stop me loving you.” 

Sherlock's eyes were shimmering with tears, and he leant into John, sniffling quietly. Automatically, John's hand was on his hair, and for a minute, time stood away and let them have their moment. 

Sitting there,  _ cuddling  _ with a crying Sherlock Holmes, who insisted that John told him he loved him and who could freely show his emotions, John almost wished that he could have this Sherlock all the time. Of course, he loved Sherlock however he was, but this Sherlock, this cutely vulnerable Sherlock, it stirred something inside of him. He wanted to do nothing more than sweep Sherlock up in his arms and protect him forever, and be perfectly content. Sure, they would still go on cases, but their home life would be just that. Homely. Intimate. They could go on long walks in the countryside, and Sherlock would tell him all about the local wildlife, and then they could go back to their little cottage and snuggle together by a roaring log fire…

God, he was describing an old couple! They weren't old! Anyway, Sherlock would  _ never  _ manage in somewhere as boring and mundane as the countryside. And neither would John. They both loved cases too much, and would never give them up. Maybe it was good just how it was. Sherlock would soften up eventually, wouldn't he? John knew that the detective had never really had a  _ real  _ relationship before, and it was going to take him a while to get used to it all. They'd only been dating a few months, anyway. It wasn't much different to before, if John was honest with himself, just with scattered kisses and hugs and “I love you”s from time to time. They hadn't had sex yet. Sherlock wasn't ready, and John totally understood that, no matter how much he just wanted to climb inside the detective's pants… God, no, John, think about something different! 

He loved this more emotional Sherlock, but then he sharply remembered what had got him in this state. The detective was in for a right bollocking when he got sober, no matter how much John loved him. 

“It's for his own good,” John murmured. 

Sherlock wasn't crying anymore. No, because now he was snoring. John leant him back in the bed, tucking him in lovingly and casting only one glance back before going back to Mycroft and the drugs team. 

“Found anything?” he asked. 

“Nothing yet, as such,” Mycroft said. He was now sitting in Sherlock's green chair, his legs crossed and his eyes as reptile-like as ever. John wondered if those eyes ever had any emotion in them. Ever. He'd ask Greg later, just to take the piss. “Where do you keep the prescription medication?” 

“Cabinet in the bathroom,” John replied, jerking his head towards the corridor. One of the suited men began to move towards it, but John stopped him. “Hang on. There's six locks on it.” 

Mycroft raised his eyebrows, but scoffed all the same. 

“Seems a little excess, but entirely useless,” he announced. “Sherlock could just pick the locks.” 

“Ah, see, that's why there's six,” John said, eyes shining. “I only lock three of them at a time, and I change which three every week. Even if Sherlock tried to pick the locks, he'd inadvertently lock the other three.” 

“What about the keys? My brother is an excellent huntsman when he wants to be.” 

“There not even here,” John said. “Greg Lestrade has them hidden under his sofa.” 

Mycroft began to chuckle lightly, shaking his head a little. John watched him curiously, folding his arms and giving him a look. 

“I underestimated you, Dr Watson,” Mycroft said, getting up from the chair and tapping his umbrella on the floor, looking down at his feet. “My brother is in very good hands.” 

John couldn't help but smile, shaking Mycroft's offered hand as the government official came to the doorway. 

“Is he clean, then?” he asked. 

“It would appear so,” Mycroft replied. “We'll search the bedroom tomorrow, when you get my brother out of the house.” 

“How am I supposed to do that?” 

“Molly Hooper,” Mycroft said, in a tone that suggested that John should've already known this. “You will insist that he go for a checkup and, my brother being my brother, he will protest but eventually give in. He will do whatever you tell him to.” 

With that, Mycroft gave John a wan smile and walked out of the flat, quickly followed by the whole drugs squad. 

John was left alone. 

It was those last words that Mycroft had said to him that stuck in John's mind.  _ He will do whatever you tell him to.  _ Well that was bullshit. He told Sherlock to eat all the time, and he never did. Well, barely ever did. And he didn't sleep when he told him to. Half the time, anyway. Plus, the experiments… No, wait, Sherlock had been stopping his particularly disgusting experiments lately when John asked...

Oh God. 

It was then that John realised how much Sherlock loved him. 

He sent another glance towards the bedroom door. That man behind the door, the drugged-up man in the hidden bed, he loved that man so goddamn much. He'd do anything for him. Anything at all. 

Then again, hadn't Sherlock? Sherlock had killed a man for him. Heck, Sherlock had  _ faked his death  _ and then been away, being tortured and flogged and God-knows what else for  _ two whole years.  _ Sherlock had done more for him than he had ever done for the detective. What had he even done for Sherlock, except yell at him and beat him up? Twice. God, how shit of a friend was he? Was he even shittier as a boyfriend? 

This was an uncharacteristically gloomy train of thought, but it was one that was taking John by storm. Sherlock deserved much better than he was, better than he could ever be. I mean, look at him… Sherlock was simply stunning. His shining, jewelled, kaleidoscope eyes, his sharper-than-iron cheekbones, his cupid-bow lips… What did John have? Exactly. 

He'd never divulge these thoughts to Sherlock, of course. The detective had enough to deal with without piling John's self-esteem issues and insecurities on top of everything. No, he'd keep this to himself. Sherlock would probably figure it out eventually, anyway. He was so smart, so fucking smart. Why would Sherlock do such a thing? Why would he put those substances into his body? 

Okay, now the train of thought was just getting out hand. Shaking his head, he tiptoed down the corridor and slipped into the bedroom. Sherlock was still curled up, fast asleep and snoring softly. One hand was curled around the sheets. John gave a small smile, crawling under the covers as carefully as he could as to not wake the detective. He pulled his jumper and his shirt off, shivering as the cold air hit his skin. Slinging one arm over Sherlock's torso, he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the thoughts circling round and round his head. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed. Please leave kudos and comments xx Also, if anyone gets the "Covent Garden beheading" reference, I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER, PLEASE COMMENT IF YOU GET


	3. Always, I Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Jesus, it's been so long since I've updated! I'm so sorry, everything's been a little hectic with school and everything. I'm moving house in like 2 weeks, but hopefully I can update before then. Anyhow, please enjoy this chapter!

It was the pounding headache that pulled Sherlock out of his slumber. He groaned as he became acutely aware of a hammering at his temples and a churning in his stomach. God, how could he be so stupid, so desperate as not to realise that he was snorting horse tranquilizer!? He twisted his head on the pillow, as if trying to escape the pain, his cheeks burning with shame as he remembered the events that had transpired the night before. Why, of all people, did Lestrade have to find him? There was no doubt in his mind that his brother had been called, and the flat extensively searched. Not that that mattered too much. At least now John would believe that he was actually clean, in a sense that he had no drugs secreted in the flat. Last night had been a slip-up. Nothing more.

He could feel a weight resting on his stomach, but he dismissed it as nothing more than a figment of his imagination, a wish. John wouldn't be in here, would he? Why would he want to sleep next to Sherlock when he'd just disappointed him so massively? He sighed. Light was beginning to filter through his eyelids, and he realised that it must be morning now, at least 8 or 9 o'clock. That brought his mood down even lower than it already was. It was The Day After now. The Day After was always worse than The Day. On The Day, people were sympathetic and kind, promising that they weren't angry. The Day After was always when the lectures came, the stern warnings and the yelling. And always that sentence: “I'm just disappointed: you could've talked to me!” It always came from someone, whether it was Mummy, or Mycroft, or Molly, or Mrs Hudson, or Lestrade, or John. Sherlock hated that sentence. It was pointless, because he would never be able to talk to any of them about it, because none of them understood a thing. Not a thing. When he said as such to them, they simply dismissed as Sherlock being difficult again, but they didn't know that he truly meant it. None of them knew what it was like to be consumed by a need, a need that you couldn't control. A need that brought itself to the forefront of your mind, controlling your every thought, your every action, your every emotion. Nothing else mattered when that need was present, least of all actually talking about it. None of them would ever know about it, and that's why Sherlock refused to discuss his former drug use (he would not call it addiction) with anyone.

John knew a little, of course, but that was only because he pestered Mycroft for long enough after a time that Sherlock came very close to an overdose for the detective's medical records. Mycroft, feeling a particularly strong loathing towards his little brother at the time, had given them to him. Sherlock would never forget the horrified look on John's face as he read through the thick brown file, the heartbroken look that he gave him as he looked towards him.

Tea. Sherlock needed tea. His stomach wasn't feeling very up to it, but he knew that there was a particularly soothing chamomile sitting at the back of the cupboard. He tried to shift, to sit up, but the weight on his stomach made a noise and pulled him back down.

Sherlock's eyes flew open, and closed again almost instantly. The curtains were drawn, but it was too much light for his sensitive eyes to handle. Carefully, he opened one eye, looking down towards the weight. It was John, still fast asleep with his head and torso resting on Sherlock. His legs were starfished across the bed, and Sherlock realised that he himself was right on the edge of the bed. Hardly daring to breath lest he wake the sleeping doctor, Sherlock carefully peeled John off of him, gently rolling him to the unoccupied part of the bed. He breathed a sigh of relief when John stayed asleep. Peeling back the covers, he swung his legs over and managed to stand up without too much trouble. He tried to take a step, and his knees immediately buckled, sending him crumpling to the floor with a loud bang.

Of course, that woke John up. Army instincts. The doctor shot upright, looking around wildly as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

“Who's injured?” he mumbled urgently.

“Ow,” came Sherlock's pitiful moan from the floor.

John crawled over to the edge of the bed, peering over the side to look at his best friend. He gave him a small smile, offering a hand.

“Are you alright?” he asked as Sherlock took the pre-offered hand, hauling himself up onto the bed next to John.

“I think so,” the detective said, rubbing his jaw with one trembling hand. “Caught my face on the cabinet on the way down.”

“D'you think you've broken anything?” John said as he eagerly collapsed back into the bed, pulling the covers over himself.

“How would I know? You're the doctor.”

“Well, you've been hit in the face enough times, I would've thought you knew by now.”

It was supposed to be a joke, but Sherlock didn't understand. Was John being purposely malicious? He turned away, looking towards the window in the hopes of looking suitably broody. In actual fact, he just looked pouty and sullen, his arms folded across his chest and his bottom lip sticking out a little. John, of course, noticed and groaned deeply, placing his forearm over his eyes.

“Sherlock.”

No reply.

“C'mon, don't be like this.”

Silence.

“It was just a joke, love.”

Sherlock turned back to him. His arms were still folded, but he looked a little less upset.

“Not a very good joke,” he grumbled.

“It was fine and you know it,” John replied, sitting up and putting his arm around the detective. “I know you probably don't feel the best, but that's no reason to be miserable.”

“I'm not being miserable,” Sherlock retorted.

“You are and you know it.”

“Why do you care so much?”

Sherlock's words were harsh, but John kept an arm around him, his eyes soft.

“Because I love your stupid arse to death, that's why,” he said. Sherlock slowly wrapped his arms around John, holding him close and simply taking in every detail, every sense of the man before him.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered.

“It's alright,” John said, his hand moving up and down Sherlock's back. “You were in pain and you didn't know how to deal with it. I'm not going to pretend that I understand, because I don't. Just know that you can always trust me.”

“I do, I promise,” Sherlock exclaimed, looking up a little. “It's just… these things are hard to talk about. Emotions simply seem to escape me. I know what I'm feeling, but I'd be damned to put it into words.”

“You're not as emotionally articulate as the rest of us,” John said. At Sherlock's strange look, he quickly added, “not that that's a bad thing, of course.”

“I know it's not bad,” Sherlock replied equally as fast. John nodded.

“Good.”

“Good.”

The two fell into an almost uncomfortable silence, John watching Sherlock closely and Sherlock studiously avoiding the army doctor's gaze, staring at the poster of the periodic table on the wall and murmuring rapidly under his breath.

“It's okay, you know,” John said hesitantly. Sherlock fell silent and turned to the army doctor, who was fiddling with the bedcovers, and worked an eyebrow. “To relapse.”

Instantly Sherlock's face went dark and John knew he'd said the wrong thing. He desperately tried to backtrack, but the damage had been done.

“It's not okay, and it never will be,” the detective said, sounding agitated. His fingers were twisted and stretched, splaying and clenching over and over. “I promised myself that I would never do that to you again, not after Mary's- well, we don't need to go into all of that, now, do we?”

The army doctor was quiet and his eyes were glued on Sherlock's fingers. Sherlock sighed heavily, pressing one hand to his throbbing temple. “The point I'm trying to make is simply that you shouldn't have to be worrying that I'm off in some drug den when I'm half an hour late home. I should be clean and that should be it.”

John, with some difficulty, looked up at the detective.

“My dad was an alcoholic,” he said in a quiet voice. Sherlock, realising that he was about to hear something incredibly important, stopped fidgeting and crawled over to sit pressed up against his boyfriend. “Not in the early days. He was really quite lovely then, and I suppose there were sparse moments of that later on. War hero, he was. But he'd seen too much and received too little help. When he started drinking…”

John shuddered despite Sherlock's body heat which was keeping him warm. “He was monstrous. Not to himself, but to everyone around him. Me, Harry, my mum. It must have been… gosh, at least six times that he went to rehab, and he always came back claiming to be a changed man. It never stuck.”

Swallowing a lump in his throat, John looked over to the detective. Sherlock looked perturbed, concerned, sympathetic and a little scared all at once. “Look, what I'm trying to say is that he never really tried to be clean, but you have. I've seen it. Dammit, I've never seen someone as bloody determined as you are sometimes. Whilst he didn't seem to care for those who loved him, you do everything you do out of love,” (Sherlock opened his mouth to protest, but John held a finger up, silencing him) “and don't even try to deny it. Whether it be love for me, love for your family, or just the love of proving Anderson wrong again, it's still love.

“You, Sherlock Holmes, are one of the kindest, most heartful, loveliest people I have ever had the good fortune of meeting. And you're a bit of a cock sometimes, but aren't we all? I will always love you, no matter how many times you relapse. We'll work through it together, because we'll always have each other, you and me. Always, I promise.”

The detective's eyes were shimmering with unshed tears and there was a distinctive faraway look in them, a certain unsurety of what to say in response. One sure thing that Sherlock knew was that actions spoke louder than words, and he was ready, he was sure of it. He owed it to John. He loved the army doctor more than anyone or anything, ever above The Work, and now was a better time than any. It was time.

Slowly, carefully, Sherlock placed one hand on the back of John's head and softly pressed his lips to the army doctor's. John gave a small noise of surprise, but soon melted into the kiss, his own hand coming to rest on Sherlock's waist. Sherlock let his other hand roam under John's thin t-shirt, brushing over the older man's shoulder blades as he opened his mouth a little, deepening the kiss.

John shivered under the detective's touch, letting out a small moan as Sherlock's fingers entangled themselves in his short hair. He let his own fingers find Sherlock's soft, satin-like ebony curls and curl themselves around them, tugging gently. Sherlock let out a moan, and his hand on John's back gradually began to lower.

Things were getting heated, and John wanted to be sure. He broke away from the detective panting, but kept his hands where they were. Sherlock gave him a questioning look.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked, still breathing heavily.

Sherlock answered with a hungry, passion-filled kiss and John took that as a very enthusiastic “yes”.

888888

“That was…”

“Wow.”

“Well bloody put.”

The two snorted and laughed, smiling as they gazed at each other. They were lying in Sherlock’s bed, their legs intertwined and their hair wild. Sherlock was giggling a little, still in the last tingling highs of euphoria as he traced aimless patterns on John’s chest.

“I love you so much,” he murmured. “I’ll never need drugs again if I have you here.”

John smiled and opened his mouth to say something, but then his phone began to sing its familiar song and he had to break away for a moment to grab it. Sherlock whined at the loss of touch.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Lestrade,” John replied, clicking the answer button and putting the phone on speaker. “Hey, Greg. You okay?”

“Just thought I’d check in with you after last night,” the DI replied. John could virtually hear him frowning over the phone. “You sound pretty happy, so I’m guessing everything’s fine.”

John smiled, looking to where Sherlock had nestled himself under his shoulder. John’s own arm was thrown over Sherlock’s shoulders, his hand gently rubbing up and down on his arm.

“Yeah,” he said. “Everything’s perfect.”

“Okay, great, because there’s been another murder,” Lestrade said. The pair sat up in bed, suddenly alert. “Same MO, found in a Kentish Town apartment. Window lock was picked, but no signs of a struggle that we can find. Reckon Sherlock’s up to it?”

“I am here, you know,” Sherlock said lazily, shifting a little to sit more upright.

“Right,” Lestrade stammered, making the detective smirk. “Well, then, are you interested?”

“Course, Lestrade,” the consulting detective replied. “Did you say Kentish Town?”

“Yeah.”

“Text me the address. We’ll meet you there in an hour, tops.”

“Thank you so much, guys,” Lestrade gushed. “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Sherlock began to speak, but the end pips resounded and he fell silent, grinning at John.

“Another time,” Sherlock said, giving John a chaste kiss. “Again, definitely. But the case calls.”

“You really think I’d keep you from your work?” the army doctor teased, giving him a small shove before wrapping a nearby blanket around his waist and leaving the sheet for his boyfriend. He stood at the foot of the bed, waiting as Sherlock stood with the sheet wrapped around him, stumbling a little. John held a hand for support, but Sherlock shook his head and staggered forwards. Once he’d reached John, it was a different story. He clutched at the army doctor’s hand, entwining their fingers.

“You sure you’re okay?” John asked worriedly as they made their way to the kitchen. “You still seem a bit… I don’t know.”

“Bit of a headache,” Sherlock replied, scrunching up his nose and pressing his free hand to his temple. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Take some paracetamol anyway,” the army doctor said. “I’d rather not it get much worse and you end up collapsing at the crime scene.” (This came with a pointed look.)

“That happened one time!”

“Yeah, one time too many.”

They tried to glare each other time, but it wasn’t long until they dissolved into a fit of giggles, doubling over with laughter. John wiped tears of mirth from his eyes, as Sherlock tried his very best not to snort. John leant against the wall, taking Sherlock with him (given that they were joined by the hand).

“Why are we laughing about this?” John sniggered. “We should not be laughing about this!”

“But you're so adorable when you're angry!” Sherlock replied, his laughter dying away as he broke away and cupped John's face in his hands. The army doctor tried to look pissed, but Sherlock kissed away the irritation, grinning. “Don't look like that. Now, must I employ what Miss Hooper calls the sexy hair ruffle, or are we okay now?”

John stammered as he felt his cheeks grow hot, wordlessly nodding and gesturing to the stairs.

“I'm going to get dressed,” he said. “Will you die if I leave you alone for a few minutes?”

“Mentally, yes,” Sherlock replied immediately. John furrowed his brow, but Sherlock grinned and chuckled. “I'll be fine. Go!”

888888

“Mycroft. Mycroft. Myyyyc…”

Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade didn't truly hate much. He believed that he was a good person, and that there was good in everyone, despite the horror he saw every day in his job. The one thing he hated, however (other than paedophiles and racists) was being ignored. Which was why he was incessantly poking Mycroft in the side of the head. The government official had been focused on his laptop for nearly five hours now, and Greg had got bored of football highlights and golf.

“What do you want, Gregory?” Mycroft murmured, his eyes not breaking away from the laptop screen. “I am very busy.”

“Doing what!?” Lestrade exclaimed. “You've been staring at that screen for, God, hours now! This is my first couple of hours off in what feels like forever, and I was very much looking forward to watching some more Netflix, on the shows that you won't let me watch without you.”

“They did it,” Mycroft said faintly. His eyes left the screen and travelled to Lestrade's confused face. “John and Sherlock.”

“Finally,” Lestrade snorted, grinning. “Sally owes me fifty quid.”

Mycroft's eyes turned dark and he frowned deeply.

“You were betting on it?” he asked. His voice was low and dangerous.

“Oh please, we've been betting on it for years now,” Lestrade said. “They still haven't told us all they were dating, but it is so obvious.”

All of a sudden, the anger was gone from Mycroft's face and he looked incredibly worried.

“Are we obvious?” he asked, gesturing between them. “I have made myself a lot of very powerful enemies in my time, and if any of them did anything to you in order to get to me, I don't know what I'd do with myself. I mean, before it was Sherlock, but they may exploit the fact of our connection. We should…”

Mycroft kept babbling, but Lestrade softly repeated his name until he stopped, pulling the DI into a tight hug. Lestrade gave a small smile, rubbing gentle circles into his boyfriend’s back.

“It’s perfectly normal to worry,” Greg said, marvelling at how much he sounded like a therapist. “But don’t get nervous, I can fend for myself.”

“I know,” said Mycroft, his voice muffled by Greg’s shoulder.

“Oh, and one question.”

Mycroft took his head from Greg’s shoulder and looked at him curiously.

“Go ahead.”

“Please tell me that you turned the cameras off.”

888888

Sherlock was still putting his coat on by the time John got down the stairs. The army doctor’s hair was still damp from the impromptu shower he’d decided to take, and he was shivering ever so slightly.

“Are you okay?” Sherlock asked. “Are you cold? We can stay here if you want.”  
“No, no,” John said quickly, taking his coat off the hook. “Although I do need to run some errands, so I’ll meet you up in Kentish Town?”

Sherlock nodded, giving him a kiss on the cheek before opening the door and stepping onto the street to hail a cab. John followed quickly after, pulling on his gloves. It took a while, but eventually they managed to find one and they hopped in. John gave the cabbie Molly’s address, and they shot off. Sherlock gave him a strange look.

“I promised her that I’d help her pack,” John explain. “She’s moving house to be closer to Bart’s.”

“Oh,” Sherlock murmured. He cleared his throat. “I think we should go public with our relationship.”

That one took John by surprise. He had been gazing out of the window, but now he turned to the detective sharply, giving him a wide-eyed look.

“Are you sure?” he said, careful to keep his tone even. “I mean, you seemed so against it before…”

Sherlock sighed deeply, taking John’s hand in him.

“I’m sure,” he replied. “I think it’s finally time.”

“People will talk.”

“People do little else.”

They giggled, but their conversation was cut short when the cab pulled to a stop outside of Molly’s apartment. Giving Sherlock a quick kiss, John gave him a small wave and got out of the cab, leaving Sherlock alone. The detective gave a small smile before listing off the Kentish Town address and settling back into his seat.

888888

Lestrade was already there by the time Sherlock pulled up, and he looked grim. His arms were folded and he looked tired, and he gave Sherlock a half-hearted wave as he walked towards him.

“It’s not good,” the DI said once Sherlock reached him. “The corpse’s been there for a good week or so, with the heating on. It’s like a bloody waste dump in there.”  
“Has the body been ID’d?” Sherlock asked. Lestrade raised an eyebrow, flicking through his notebook.

“Uh, yeah,” he said. “Male this time. Jacob ‘Jake’ Mcnamara, 35 years old. Once again, no serious medical conditions that we know of, but we’re still waiting for the autopsy report to confirm cause of death. Still, we’re pretty sure. He was isolated. Worked from home, had home delivery on his shopping.”

“Doesn’t seem fond of human contact,” Sherlock replied, raising an eyebrow. “How would the murderer have found him?”

“Jake was an agoraphobic,” Lestrade said. “He left his flat once a week for his therapy session. Maybe the murderer screened him then…?”

Sherlock scrunched his nose up, a look that Lestrade had come to associate with distaste, but nodded anyhow. Before the detective could say any more, Donovan and Anderson came out of the flat/crime scene, whispering between themselves.

“Oo, Freak got some!” Sally yelled teasingly as she got closer. Heads turned, sniggers could be heard and Sherlock’s cheeks flushed a deep crimson.

“And you would know that how, Sergeant?” Sherlock murmured, addressing the ground rather than her.

“You’ve got that post-sex glow about you,” she replied as flippant as ever, gesturing around him. “Who’s the lucky person?”

Sherlock bristled at the question, but Lestrade noticed that he did seem to radiate a little respect towards Sally for not assuming his sexuality.

“None of your business,” the detective said. “Now, Anderson, have you completely botched the crime scene, or is there still some valuable evidence left?”

Anderson glared at him as he snapped off his gloves.

“I don’t care about your stupid dislike of the suit, I want you in one with gloves and a mask,” he said, scowling. “That corpse has been putrefying for a week and a half, it’s officially a biohazard.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes but nodded again. He was eyeing the sealed box of paper suits with disdain, his hand twitching a little. He hated the way they scraped against his skin, coarse and uncomfortable. Shuddering, he suddenly remembered the long, long list of diseases that can be caught from rotting corpses and he decided he could live with the Noddy suit for a little while.

“Fine,” he sighed. “Where’s the body?”

888888

Well, Anderson definitely wasn’t lying when he used the word putrefying.

Even with the mask on, Sherlock still very nearly gagged when he entered the room. The heating had now been turned off, but the damage had been done. Half of the corpse’s abdomen had caved in, and the face’s features were unrecognisable, the skin having rotted and sloughed away. Lestrade wouldn’t even come into the room, instead standing outside the door with a full-filter mask over his nose and mouth.

“There’s a muddy footprint on the windowsill,” Sherlock said, barely opening his mouth under the mask. “Size 6, it looks like. Only one, so I can’t quite deduce height or gait, but I can tell you that the mud is from Pimlico. The place has been scrubbed clean, very rigorously, I might add. That means the murderer has left us the footprint on purpose.” Sherlock smirked. “They’re getting cocky.”

Lestrade gestured for the detective to join him outside of the room, and Sherlock happily did so, glad to get away from the stench of rotting flesh.

“What d’you mean he’s getting cocky?” the DI asked once they were a suitable distance from the body.

“Well, they’re leaving clues,” Sherlock said slowly, as if he were talking to a toddler. “That usually means either they want to be caught, they think that the police are idiots and want to show it, or they’re feeling clever.”

Lestrade’s eyes widened as he stared at the consultant. They were both silent just as Sherlock’s phone pinged four times in quick succession. Sherlock raised an eyebrow, but ignored it.

“Expect a body drop soon,” he said. “Put the word out to any and every hospital and morgue in London: every single body that so much as resembles a heart attack or stroke, I want the bodies checked for puncture marks.”

The DI nodded, and then Sherlock’s phone rang out loudly. Sighing in a long-suffering manner, Sherlock fished it out of his pocket and held it to his ear.

“What?”

“Sherlock?” said Molly. She sounded nervous. “There’s been an accident with John.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed. Please remember to leave kudos and comments xx


	4. You're Here Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah! I'm back! Broke up from school today, so I've got two weeks off. Hoping to get at least two more chapters out in that time. Hopefully next chapter will be out by about 11 p.m (UK time) Sunday. Anyhows, please enjoy this!

Now, one thing that Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade would readily admit about himself was that he wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the box. Mycroft, naturally, would disagree, arguing that his partner was at least twenty percent less dense than most, but there was many-a-time when Lestrade found himself wondering how on earth he'd made it to the rank of DI (then Sherlock would show up and he'd remember). However, one thing that he was exceptionally good at was noticing when something was wrong with people, and something was wrong with Sherlock. 

The minute that the detective heard whatever the person on the other end had said, he went stock-still, his face draining of what little colour it had. His eyes were wide, and his mouth moved uselessly as he began to tremble. Lestrade knew that. He'd seen it before when he'd had to break bad news. Shock. Fear. Panic. 

“Sherlock, mate?” he said cautiously, coming a little closer towards the detective. “You alright?” 

The sound of the DI's voice seemed to break Sherlock from his trance. 

“I'll be there soon,” he murmured down the phone before shoving it in his pocket and hurtling without warning at full-speed towards the stairs, a very worried Detective Inspector following not far behind. 

“Sherlock!” Lestrade hollered after him as a sense of dread settled deep in his stomach. He had a horrible feeling that something bad had happened. “Where are you going?” 

“Molly's apartment!” Sherlock shouted back, his voice desperate. “Something's happened to John!” 

Barely, Lestrade managed to grab Sherlock's arm, forcing the younger man to stop. Sherlock was panting, his eyes wide and pleading as he looked at the DI. 

“What happened?” Lestrade asked, his voice somehow both comforting and commanding. 

“I-I-I don't know!” Sherlock stammered. “Molly just said there was an accident, and John could be hurt, o-or-or unconscious, or-” 

The detective was on the brink of hyperventilation as he looked wildly around the corridor, tears starting to spill over onto his cheeks. Lestrade clamped his hands down in Sherlock's wrists, forcing him to look at him. 

“Just breathe, mate,” he said, as calling my as he could muster. “You're no good to John right now if you're panicking, are you?” 

Sherlock nodded wordlessly, sucking in a deep breath and murmuring the good doctor's name under his breath. 

“I need to get to him,” he finally said, hurriedly wiping his eyes. 

“I'll take you,” Lestrade replied. “Trying to get a cab from here in the middle of the day is absolute torture.” 

The two headed downstairs, shedding their Noddy suits and face masks when they made it to the forensics tent. They began to walk to Lestrade's car, but Sally intercepted them before they could make it. 

“Where are you going?” she asked, her tone demanding and her arms folded across her chest. 

“Molly's apartment,” the DI said. “Got to… um, clear something up.” 

Sherlock blanched, and Lestrade pulled him into the car before Donovan could say any more. “Sorry, mate, bad choice of words.” 

“Quite,” the detective murmured. 

“I'm sure he's fine,” Lestrade tried to say comfortingly. 

“If he was fine, Molly wouldn't've called me.” 

Lestrade opted for silence. 

888888

The car had barely stopped moving before Sherlock leapt out, sprinting towards towards Molly's front door. Lestrade quickly switched off the engine and hurried after him. The detective didn't even knock, instead barging right into the house with Lestrade hot on his heels. Sherlock was almost like a trained bloodhound as he searched for John, the DI thought as he watched the tall man deduce where his partner was. However, before Sherlock could once again show off his intellectual prowess, Molly showed up and ushered them into the living room. 

John was lying on the sofa, his face ashen as he held a tea-towel-ed ice pack to his head. Sherlock rushed forward and knelt at his side, gently cupping his partner's face in his hand. 

“Are you okay?” he said, his tone urgent. “Please tell me you're okay.”

John moved one of Sherlock's hands from his cheek, holding it to his chest sent a gave him a small smile. 

“I'm fine,” he said. “I only passed out for about thirty seconds-” 

“You-you passed out!?” Sherlock exclaimed. He reached up and shifted the tea towel, revealing the ugly wound that was still seeping blood. “Jesus Christ, John.” 

“It's fine,” John replied quickly. “I was carrying a heavy box down the stairs, and I must have tripped or something, hit my head or something. Probably my own fault. Molly didn't need to call you.” 

“No, she was absolutely right to call me,” Sherlock said. 

“But the case-” 

“You're more important to me than any case ever could be. I'd drop the best locked door mystery or the most infamous unsolved murders in the world if you needed me.” 

Tears formed in John's eyes, and Sherlock thought he'd done something wrong, but then the army doctor pressed a quick kiss to the detective's lips, not caring if Molly or Lestrade saw. 

“So…” Lestrade said with a grin once they'd broken apart. “You two?” 

“Yeah,” John said, taking the ice pack back and putting it on his wound. “It happened on the night of the acid burns.”  

“The one where you sprained your wrist?” 

Sherlock's cheeks flamed. John smiled. 

“Yeah, that one,” he said. 

“Oh come off it, Lestrade, you already knew,” Sherlock blurted out, desperate to take the attention away from he and John's relationship. “Mycroft probably told you, given that you two are screwing now.” 

It came out much more bitter and petulant than it was supposed to, Sherlock thought in hindsight. 

“Sherlock,” John said in that exasperated tone of voice he used when Sherlock had just insulted someone (usually a complete stranger). 

“Not good?” 

“A bit, yeah.” 

“No, it's fine,” Lestrade cut in, sitting down heavily on the armchair. Molly stood in the doorway, hiding her smile behind the sleeve of her jumper. The DI clasped his hands on his knees, putting on his best  _ serious  _ face. “Sherlock, look… Jesus, this a conversation I thought I'd be having with my kids, not you…” 

“Just spit it out, Lestrade,” Sherlock demanded. 

“Maybe Mycroft should be talking to you about this,” Lestrade said quickly. 

“You're obviously trying to avoid the subject. Must I deduce it out of you?” 

“Look, Mycroft and I, we're more than just screwing,” Lestrade said. Sherlock screwed his face up, and it was all John could do not to laugh. “We're dating. Like actual dating. And Sherlock, it's… it's more than anything I've ever had before, and he means more to me than anyone, bar my kids of course, ever have.” 

“You were right, I should have let Mycroft do this,” Sherlock murmured. Lestrade chuckled, but continued. 

“I won't hurt him,” he said. “I know he's much more fragile than he lets on.” 

“He had too much responsibility forced on him far too young,” Sherlock replied. “What, with Eurus and everything… he wasn't ready for it, any of it.” 

“I know,” Lestrade agreed. “And I'll do my best to look after him.” 

Sherlock took a moment, and Lestrade held his breath, but the young man nodded, holding out his hand. 

“Welcome to the family,” he said as Lestrade took it. “So I guess you're coming to Mummy's annual Sunday lunch she  _ insists  _ on us coming to?” 

Lestrade and John started. 

“That's a thing?” they both exclaimed. 

“Yes,” Sherlock said. “And Mummy insists that we bring partners, if we have them. She's been desperate for Mycroft to bring home a good man for years now.” 

“And when were you planning to tell me about this?” John asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“The day before,” Sherlock mumbled. “It's only in Sussex! I've already booked the train tickets.” 

“Can't Mycroft take us?” 

“You really think that's a good idea?” Sherlock scoffed. John thought about it for a moment, then made a face and shook his head. 

“Well, I best be off,” Lestrade said, clapping his hands on his knees and getting up, putting his hand on John's shoulder. “New murder and everything. John: get better soon, yeah? Sherlock, text me about this family dinner.” 

And, saying goodbye to Molly, he left. Molly came over and lifted the tea towel, checking John's wound. Sherlock held his partner's hand, wincing when John winced and keeping his eyes on the army doctor at all times. 

“Well, I think it's stopped bleeding,” she said. “Do you feel nauseous? Dizzy? Any difficulty concentrating?” 

“Molly, I'm fine,” John replied, smiling at her. “Just a bit of a headache, that's all.” 

“Right,” Molly said, sounding a little dubious. “Well, I suppose you two can get back to Baker Street. If he gets worse, Sherlock, call me immediately, okay?” 

Sherlock nodded as he helped John up off the sofa, steadying him with an arm slipped around his shoulders. The army doctor swayed a little, but when Molly or Sherlock opened their mouths to say something, he brushed them off. 

“You sure you're okay?” Sherlock said as they walked down the street, looking up and down for a cab. John was about to say something, but then someone small collided with them and they stopped. 

“Oh my God, I'm so-” the woman (it was a woman, they could see that now) babbled, but then she looked up at them and stopped. “Sherlock! Where have you been?” 

“A-Aliyah!” Sherlock stammered. Somehow managing to keep one arm around John, he reached over and hugged her, letting out a small laugh. “It's been- what, a month, now?” 

“At least, yeah,” Aliyah replied, breaking away and turning to John. “Hey, John. Geez, what happened to your head?” 

“Long story,” John said tiredly, just managing to give her a weak smile. “How are you? How's Kaitlin?” 

“I'm great, she's great,” Aliyah said, grinning. She glanced up and down the street, and then back at them. “Hey… wanna come back to mine for a bit? I have ice cream.” 

That was all John and Sherlock needed. 

888888

Aliyah's flat was small, much smaller than Baker Street. It was remarkably similar to his old university flat, Sherlock thought, just without the drugs paraphernalia and the blood-stained razors strewn everywhere. There was only two rooms, the bathroom and the joint bedroom-kitchen-dining-room. 

“I know it's only small,” Aliyah said, throwing her keys in a bowl on the top of the mini-fridge before opening it up and holding out a can of cola. “You want one?” 

“I'm fine,” Sherlock said, glancing towards John. The army doctor was sat on the sofa, slumped over and already half-asleep. 

“He tired, huh?” she said, cracking her own can and sitting on the edge of the bed, patting the space next to her. Sherlock sat down next to her. “So how are you two?” 

“We, um…” Sherlock started, his face blushing. It only took Aliyah a moment to realise what he meant, and she punched him on the arm, grinning at him. 

“Dude, yes!” she screamed. They both looked quickly over to John, but he was sound asleep. “Tell me  _ eeeeev _ erything!” 

“Well, um, I may have, um, relapsed a little,” Sherlock mumbled, looking down at the floor. Aliyah gave him a small smile, rubbing her hand up and down his arm gently. “And this morning, I don't know, it just sort of… progressed naturally. It was-” 

“Bloody awesome?” 

Sherlock laughed, nodding. 

“Bloody  _ awesome _ ,” he remarked. 

“It’s always better with someone you really love,” said Aliyah, an almost nostalgic tone to her voice. “Like, you know they’re the one. It just sort of… I don’t know, clicks.” 

“I knew John was the one on our first case,” Sherlock said. “When he didn’t insult me for deducing him. No-one had ever done that before.” 

Aliyah smiled, but then her face fell and set in a hardened expression. 

“Right, well, as lovely as all of this nostalgia is, you know the deal, mister,” she said, holding out her hand. “Sleeves up.” 

Sherlock let out a sigh but did as she asked, shedding his Belstaff and his suit jacket before rolling up his white sleeves. He tried his best to ignore the needle scars and the bulging veins: the temptation was still there and raging strong. Aliyah looked over his arms thoroughly, and then, seemingly satisfied, she let him go. 

“Your turn,” he said gently. She was looking guiltily to the side. “It’s okay. I won’t judge. It’s part of deal, is it not?” 

Tears forming in her eyes, Aliyah slowly pulled up the sleeves of her pastel blue hoodie. On her arm were three new cut, small and shallow, just starting to scab over and standing out on her pale arm. 

“Are you mad?” she sniffled, looking up at him. He suddenly realised that he was frowning deeply. 

“No, no,” he said quickly. “Of course not.” 

“But… but I cut again,” she said, sounding confused. “I promised you I wouldn’t.” 

Sherlock gave her a small smile, chuckling a little. 

“Nobody is perfect,” he replied. “You’re always going to have slip-ups, and that’s okay. You just have to try your best not to make those slip-ups too major, and you have to know how to deal with them. This,” he said, pointing to the cuts on her arm, “this could’ve been much worse. I’m proud of you for showing me.” 

Aliyah’s eyes filled with tears, and before Sherlock could stop her she launched herself at him, hugging him tightly. It took him a moment, but he slowly wrapped his arms around her, savouring the hug. When Aliyah broke away, she glanced at John with a worried frown on her face. 

“You sure he’s okay?” she asked. Sherlock looked over: John was slumped over on the sofa, somehow having managed to lie himself down, and was fast asleep. He was snoring. Loudly. “He snores like a chainsaw.” 

“I know,” Sherlock agreed, his gaze not shifting from the army doctor. “I love him to bits, but it doesn’t help when I’m  _ actually  _ tired for once.” 

“Oh, yeah, how has your sleeping been going?” 

Sherlock grimaced as he looked back at her. 

“Not pleasant,” he muttered. “Serbia.” 

“Nightmares?” 

“When I sleep, yes. A lot. John gets them as well, more, it seems, but he does sleep every night.” 

Aliyah fixed him with a stare that said she meant business. Sherlock tried not to squirm. She narrowed her eyes. 

“You haven’t told him you’re having nightmares, have you?” she said. Sherlock shook his head. 

“But it’s pathetic,” he moaned, sounding a little pouty. Aliyah rolled her eyes. “I’m a grown man! I deal with murder on a daily basis! I should be able to go to sleep without waking up and sobbing my eyes out!” 

“Hang on....” Aliyah said suspiciously. “Presumably you two sleep in the same bed?” 

“Of course.” 

“Then how come he doesn’t hear you when you wake up?” 

Sherlock frowned, glancing quickly over at John. 

“I’ve learnt to be quiet,” he said quickly before getting up, going over to John and kneeling by him. Aliyah looked over in alarm to see that sweat was beading on the army doctor’s brow, and he was murmuring under his breath, his face contorted into an expression of complete and utter fear. 

“Sherlock, no…” he was muttering. Aliyah gasped softly, placing a hand over her mouth. Sherlock cupped John’s face in his hands, gently tapping his partner’s cheek. 

“John, come on, wake up,” the detective whispered almost distractedly. “Then you’ll see that I’m here, I’m here with you, and it’ll all be fine, I promise.” 

But it didn’t wake John up, and he kept muttering, tossing and turning on the small sofa. Giving up on any hope of retaining any dignity for either of them, Sherlock pulled John into his lap, cradling his head on his shoulder. It always worked when they were in bed together and John had a nightmare, whether it be about the war or The Fall or Mary. Sure enough, John’s eyes soon snapped open and he looked fearfully at Sherlock before burying his face in the younger man’s shoulder. He was sobbing. 

“It’s okay,” Sherlock murmured, one hand on the back of John’s hand as he gently rocked back and forth. “It’s okay, I’m here.” 

“I thought…” John stammered, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “I thought you were dead.” 

“I’m not, I’m right here with you,” Sherlock said. John took his face from his shoulder, looking at Sherlock properly. He was latched to him, and his breathing was still rather erratic. That worried the detective more than anything else. “John. John, tell me five things that you can see and five things you are feeling.” 

Long ago, after a rather unfortunate incident involving a serial killer, a very echoey warehouse and a large amount of fireworks, John had taught Sherlock how to work someone else out of a panic attack. Sherlock had stored it at the back of his mind palace, hoping that he’d never have to use it. To date, he hadn’t had to, at least not for anyone else. However, he could see John working himself into a state and thought it might have been time to dig it out. 

“Um…” John said, sucking in a deep breath. “I can see… I can see your coat over there, on the chair. And, um, your scarf. Yeah, your scarf’s lying on top of it. It’s still got that rice pudding stain on it from last week.” 

“Should probably get it washed.” 

They both giggled. John’s breathing had evened a little. 

“I can see Aliyah’s crazy fluffy throw,” John said, his voice stronger and more confident. “And I am jealous.” 

“I’ll buy you one,” Aliyah joked. John smiled. 

“And I can see you,” he said, addressing Sherlock. “I see your cheekbones, I see that mole on the side of your neck that you hate, I see your mental curls that you don’t even  _ try  _ to tame.” He grinned. “And I love it all. I don’t know how I ever got this lucky.” 

“I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m supposed to say,” Sherlock replied, his voice low and slightly seductive. They were staring into each other’s eyes, slowly getting closer, and it would have been a beautiful moment if Aliyah hadn’t started pretending to throw up. 

“You two are so cute it’s sickening,” she said, making a face. “I love it.” 

They both gave her a look from where they were entangled in each other on the floor. She cackled, going over to the freezer. 

“Right, I’ve only got the Halo Top stuff ‘cause Kaitlin’s gone vegan,” she said, holding out one of the tubs as proof. “I can offer you peanut butter cup, salted caramel or birthday cake. And Sherlock, you owe me a game of Cluedo, I believe.” 

John’s eyes widened and he surveyed the room for anywhere,  _ anywhere  _ where he could take cover in the event of some sort of apocalypse. Hey, it was Sherlock and Cluedo. It never ended well. 

“Save the birthday cake one for January 6th,” he remarked. Sherlock tightened his grip slightly, a warning sign to John to stop talking. John ignored him, ruffling his hair. “This one’s birthday.” 

Aliyah squealed and began talking very fast and excitedly. 

“John,  _ whyyyyyyyyy _ ?” 

888888

By the time they left Aliyah’s, it was nearly eight o’clock. John’s head had bruised nicely, but he didn’t seem to be too bad, and both were keen to avoid A&E, so they agreed that if it suddenly got worse, they would go. Kaitlin, Aliyah’s girlfriend, had showed up at about three or four, and they had ended up playing Monopoly, couple versus couple. With Sherlock’s freaky knowledge of the game, he and John had won easily. 

_ “How!?” Aliyah screamed, throwing down five hundred Monopoly dollars. Sherlock smiled smugly, taking the cash.  _

_ “Mycroft used to think himself fabulous at this game. I learnt all the best strategies simply to spite him.”  _

The streets of London was strangely quiet. Well, quiet for London, that is. The tabloids had finally got word of the serial killer with the virtually undetectable method, so alerts were at an all-time high. Luckily for John and Sherlock, it meant that cabs were readily available and they were already on their way home. John yawned deeply, snuggling into Sherlock’s side. 

“Tell me again why you don’t like the tube,” he said, his voice sleepy. Sherlock sighed. 

“It’s too much information,” the detective replied. “An overload, I think is the best way to describe it.” 

“I like it,” the army doctor proclaimed. “It’s… relaxing.” 

He slumped back into Sherlock. Aliyah had produced a bottle of vodka somewhere between the Monopoly game and the Bop It tournament, so John was a little tipsy. Sherlock, wisely, had chosen to stay sober. He had a naturally addictive personality, and he’d already had a slip-up not that long ago. 

“Well, then you have a very strange brain, John Watson,” he said, placing a kiss on the top of John’s head. 

“Yeah, but you love me.” 

“Yes, I do.” 

By the time they were back at Baker Street, John had fallen into a sleep of the dead and Sherlock had to carry him up the stairs, setting him gently on their bed and leaving him to sleep. Sherlock himself curled up on his green armchair, his violin resting in his arms as he lazily plucked at the strings, reflecting on the events on the day. 

Now, this wasn’t something he did often, but he thought it rather crucial. Not only had John hardly questioned him on the aftermath of the relapse, but he had behaved perfectly normally. And they’d had sex. 

They’d had  _ sex _ !! 

Sherlock became like a giddy, lovesick schoolboy when he thought about it, and he was really, he supposed when he thought about it. He still wasn’t quite sure  _ why  _ John wanted him, of all people. 

_ “The point I'm trying to make is that I am the most unpleasant, rude, ignorant and all-round obnoxious arsehole that anyone could possibly have the misfortune to meet. l am dismissive of the virtuous, unaware of the beautiful, and uncomprehending in the face of the happy. So if I didn't understand I was being asked to be best man, it is because I never expected to be anybody's best friend. And certainly not the best friend of the bravest and kindest and wisest human being I have ever had the good fortune of knowing.”  _

Those words, spoken at John’s wedding, still rang true for him. Only now replace “best friend” with “boyfriend”. Why? Why had John chosen him? Not that he wasn’t grateful, of course. He’d never been more thankful for anything in his life. He just didn’t understand it. Sherlock hated not understanding. Normally, he’d just delete it and pretend it didn’t exist, but he simply  _ couldn’t  _ do that with John. He’d rather die than have a life without John, that he was sure of. He’d faked his death for John, and he’d do it again in a heartbeat. 

Anyway. Bad thoughts. 

Sherlock tried his very best to shake the voices of self-hatred, of impulse from his mind. 

_ “Go on, do a bit of coke.”  _

_ “Go on, go and get that razor.”  _

_ “Go on, the smack house is round the corner.”  _

_ “Go on…”  _

_ “Go on…”  _

_ “Go on…”  _

“Sherlock?” 

He hadn’t realised he’d been crying but he looked up hurriedly, surprised to find his cheeks wet and John looking at him worriedly. Most of the traces of intoxication appeared to have evaporated from him. 

“John,” he said, trying to surreptitiously wipe the tears from his cheeks. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?” 

“Come off it, love,” the army doctor said, coming over to him and running his fingers through Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock smiled. John always knew how to make him feel better. “You alright?” 

“I’m fine.”

John frowned. 

“But you were crying,” he said, reaching forward and wiping the tears from Sherlock’s cheek, catching another one as it fell. “See, you’re still crying.” 

“Happy tears,” Sherlock said simply. “You’re here now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, this is literally the soppiest thing I've ever written. It's weird, I'm not used to this. Hope you've enjoyed this xx


	5. Genius Turned Fraud Turned Hero- The Sherlock Holmes Exclusive Six Years On (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in publishing this, but life interfers, y'know? Anyway, this chapter is 1000 words longer than normal, and it's a two-parter, so hopefully that makes up for it. Please enjoy this xx
> 
> Bold+italics: newspaper  
> Italics (big block): flashback

_ A few days later  _

The day had been going fine until they opened the newspaper. 

Well,  _ fine  _ was a broad description, but it wasn't entirely awful. Sherlock had woken in the early hours of the morning from a nightmare, which mostly consisted of standing on the ledge of the roof, hesitating for a second and… that was all it took for Moriarty's men. Once he'd woken (and managed to prevent the impending panic attack) he simply sat on the bed, his knees drawn to his chest as he watched over John carefully. The army doctor woke up a few hours later through the same sort of circumstances. It always happened on the anniversary. It didn't matter that it had been six years. The pain was just as fresh. The moment the two laid eyes on each other, they clutched at each other and refused to let go. 

221B was unusually quiet. No gunshots. No screams of “Bored!”. No random explosions from the upstairs bedroom (previously John's, but now Sherlock's experiment room so they could actually have a proper kitchen. Sherlock had cried when John showed him the room, fully decked out with the best science equipment money could buy courtesy of Mycroft). Just their breathing, which was more precious to both of them than, well, anything, really. 

Mycroft would be round later, with Lestrade. Mycroft would deal with his brother whilst Lestrade took care of the much more emotional John. Well, more outwardly emotional, anyway. Mycroft was under no illusion of how emotional his brother could be. It was something he'd inherited from their mother. 

In the Lestrade-Holmes household, it was also quiet. Lestrade was still fast asleep: his work had been keeping him awake every night, and this was the first time in at least a week and a half that he'd got a proper rest. Mycroft had instructed his staff to leave them alone for the day. No, not even for food. Ingredients for pancakes (Gregory's favourite) had been left on the kitchen counter, but other than that they were alone. 

That in itself was a miracle. 

Mycroft's mind was far too active for sleep. He was staring up at the smooth white ceiling, trying to ignore the thoughts racing around his brain. Ever since he was little, he had suffered from the worst insomnia, barely able to sleep more than twenty minutes in a row without waking. Sherlock was the same, and Mycroft remembered fondly the late-night deduction sessions, when the two would examine something that Sherlock had stolen from his preschool teacher. This was before everything with Eurus kicked off. Mycroft still missed it sometimes. 

“Gregory,” he said softly, careful not to wake his sleeping companion. “I know you can’t hear me, and perhaps you don’t want to, but I feel that I need to say this. You know that I do not do emotions very well, but what I feel about you can only be described as extraordinary. I feel as if I want to be by your side every second over every day. When the Chinese prime minister is pissing me off, I think of you and suddenly I am calm. I suppose what I’m trying to say is… is that I love you.” 

Because he closed his eyes, he didn’t see Greg smile or see him mouth “I love you too”. 

888888

Meanwhile in Baker Street, weak strands of sunlight were beginning to break through the curtains of their bedroom. They had barely moved in over three hours. Sherlock’s legs were twisted around John’s waist, and they were still hugging tightly, their cheeks pressed together. 

“Never leave me,” John murmured. 

“I won’t, I promise,” whispered Sherlock. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you too.” 

Outside, a pigeon crowed. The sounds of a regular London day were starting to fill the streets, cabs racing up and down the road and tourists chattering loudly outside of the window in the living room. There was an American couple which Sherlock and John could hear from their bedroom at the back of the flat. 

“Isn’t that where Sherlock Holmes lives?” one of them said. Sherlock winced: they sounded particularly obnoxious. 

“Yeah, the weirdo who can read people,” the other, a woman, replied. “I still can’t believe all of that about him!” 

They chose to ignore the rest of the conversation. 

“People are idiots,” Sherlock grumbled, finally unwrapping himself from John and getting up off the bed, stretching. John winced when Sherlock’s back cracked. 

“Most of them are, yeah,” John said. “Please don’t tell me there are any cases today.” 

“No,” Sherlock said, holding out his hand to help John up. The army doctor took it gratefully. “I took the liberty of putting out a notice on your blog that we would not be accepting cases today, or tomorrow, for that case.”

“Why not tomorrow?” asked John, curious. 

“Well, I intend on spoiling you rotten these next couple of days,” Sherlock replied airily. John opened his mouth to protest. “And nothing you say will stop me.” 

John grinned, giving Sherlock a quick peck on the lips before going into the kitchen and clicking the kettle on.

“D’you mind if I put the radio on?” he called over to his boyfriend. 

“Not at all, my prince.” 

John had never blushed so much in his life, and he turned away quickly, but not before Sherlock saw. The detective smirked from his armchair as he went through the mail that was on the table (having somehow magically appeared along with the day’s newspapers, all folded neatly in a pile with the front pages hidden just as Sherlock liked), his eyebrows raising as he went through the sheer amount of fan mail, as John dubbed it. 

“Seventeen!” he exclaimed when he finished, jumping up from his seat. 

“Hm?” John said. He was used to Sherlock’s outbursts by now. 

“Fan letters!” 

“Is that all?” John mused. 

“What?” 

“Well, I rented out a PO box,” John explained. “There’s probably a load there. We’ll go down later.” 

“How people get so fascinated with the romanticized versions of our cases you put on your blog, I will never know,” Sherlock said, shaking his head. “You take out all the good stuff!” 

“Actually, they’re more concerned with us.” 

“Us?” 

“Yeah, us. Well, more accurately our relationship,” John replied as the kettle whistled, signifying that it was finished. 

“But…” Sherlock said, seemingly confused. He was upside-down on his chair at this point, his legs folded over the back of the cushion as his hair just brushed the floor. “Why?” 

“I’m not sure,” John admitted. “Though I do remember reading one letter describing my  _ rustic charm  _ and your- oh, what was it-  _ posh boy obliviousness  _ in quite explicit detail.” 

John chuckled at the memory, and had expected at least a snort in response from his companion, but Sherlock was oddly silent. John shrugged it off as mind palace or perhaps very deep concentration on reading something, but then the detective whispered his name in a desperate, distressed way and he knew that something was wrong. 

Sherlock had many different ways of saying John’s name. There was the begging way he used when asking for cigarettes or a particularly disgusting/may-cause-serious-and-expensive-structural-damage type experiment, and the gleeful way in which he called him when there was an unusually extraordinary case (or indeed any case at all if the criminal classes had been going through a significantly long dry spell). But this? John knew this one far too intimately. This was a cry of despair. Synonymous with ‘help’. Very serious, about as serious as it got. 

“Sherlock?” John said, barely daring to turn around. He did, of course. The detective was still upside down, as if suspended in mid-air, his face remarkably drained of colour despite the redness in his neck from his position. He seemed frozen, his breaths shallow and short. In his hands was the  _ Daily Mail _ . The  _ Telegraph  _ was spread on the floor to his right, the  _ Sun  _ by his left. There must have been about seven or eight newspapers spread about the room, but in one form or another, the front pages were all the same. 

**_Genius turned Fraud turned Hero: the Sherlock Holmes EXCLUSIVE six years on!!!_ **

The photos ranged from that stupid one from John’s blog, the  _ Hatman and Robin  _ one, to the pictures from Sherlock’s apparent drug addiction originally printed in Magnussen’s newspaper. The  _ Daily Mail  _ held a particularly striking one: Sherlock, at about three or four, grinning to the camera, proudly holding up a violin. It was the very same one that was tucked away in the corner of the room, that had somehow through some sort of supernatural interference survived Eurus’ patience grenade. 

“Jesus Christ,” John managed to breath out. “As if this day couldn’t get any worse.” 

“John, they have  _ everything _ ,” Sherlock whispered. He sounded broken. Simply broken. John had decided long ago that broken was a way no Holmes (even Mycroft, despite John’s often dwindling opinion of the government official) should ever sound, or indeed feel. John reached for one of the ones on the ground, but Sherlock stopped him by saying, “They’re all the same, I checked. They all have it all.” 

“Have what?” asked the army doctor, afraid of the answer. 

“My life story,” the other replied simply. “All of it.” 

In a sudden fit of rage, Sherlock flung the newspaper at John, and it barely missed the army doctor’s head. Given that Sherlock’s aim was usually flawless, John took this as a bad sign. He bent down to pick it up, cautious of any other flying papers that were being hurled at him. He looked down at paper in his hand. It was the  _ Mail _ , and John had a moment to appreciate the absurd cuteness of his flatmate at primary school age before he flipped through pages upon pages which were dedicated to chronicling Sherlock’s entire life. It felt as if it made up the entire newspaper. 

“Go ahead, read it!” Sherlock exclaiming, letting out a bark of laughter before getting up from his chair and wrenching the knife from the mantlepiece, turning it over and over in his hand. Keeping a careful eyes on him, John did as he was told, flicking back to the first page and beginning to read it. 

**_Sherlock Holmes was born on the sixth of January 1983 to a genius mathematician of a mother (Violet) and a doting father (Sigur), along with a older brother seven years his senior. His full birth name, which may come as a shock to some, is William Sherlock Scott Holmes, but the famous genius has, according to our source, always gone by Sherlock._ **

Next to this was an extremely adorable baby photo, the kind of which John had never seen before. Even as a tiny baby, Sherlock had had almost a full head of curls, although they looked softer and a little more tame. Sherlock was watching closely as John tried to suppress an  _ aw _ . 

**_Holmes proved himself a budding young prodigy at an early age: he was walking by the time he was seven months old, and could read full books meant for children five-to-seven times his age by the time he was two. Strangely, however, he did not begin to speak until he was nearly three._ **

**_During his toddler years, it is said that he enjoyed playing with his older brother, Mycroft (full name Alexander Mycroft Chad Holmes), and his younger sister Eurus (full name Jessica Eurus Tiffany Holmes), who is one year Sherlock’s junior._ **

There was a picture to the side, of the three Holmes siblings, a one-year-old Sherlock balanced in his brother’s arms as his mother held a newborn Eurus in her arms, beaming with her husband’s arm around her shoulder. John gasped softly, turning to face Sherlock. The detective was as white as a sheet, shaking a little and looking as if he might collapse at any moment. The knife was still in his hand.

“How… how could they  _ possibly  _ know about your sister?” the army doctor stammered. “That information’s classified.” 

“The press always have their ways,” Sherlock said grimly, gesturing to the paper. His anger appeared to have vanished. “Keep reading.” 

John did so. 

**_The first five years of the future detective’s life were spent at the family’s ancestral home, Musgrave Hall. Inherited from a long-lost family member who is rumoured to have become rich during the reign of the Georgians. The Holmes have a long history of…_ **

The next two pages was mostly the ancestry of the Holmes family, and whilst John was sure it was undeniably fascinating, it wasn’t very helpful to him at that precise moment. He skipped ahead to where he next saw Sherlock’s name mentioned. 

**_Sherlock, still an antisocial child even at four and five, did make one particular friend when he began primary school at aged four. Victor Trevor, a local boy, became fast friends with the boy, and they spent hours together in vast expanse of countryside around Sherlock’s stately home. They played pirates together, giving each other the nicknames ‘Redbeard’ and ‘Yellowbeard’. Everything seemed to be going perfectly for the young boy._ **

**_However, in 1988, tragedy struck. Victor Trevor went missing, and despite all efforts by his desperate parents, he was never found. He has been presumed dead ever since, and this struck the young Sherlock extremely hard. It is said he became withdrawn, even more adverse to human contact than before and much less emotional. He may have even convinced himself that ‘Redbeard’ was nothing more than a family pet to help himself cope with the tragedy._ **

**_Barely a month after Victor Trevor’s disappearance, another undoubtedly catastrophic event was to rock the young boy’s world. On the eve of the 16th of April 1988, a fire broke out at Musgrave Hall. Sherlock, his brother and their parents were lucky to escape with their lives, having jumped from their second story windows, but unfortunately Eurus, just four years old at the time, was not so fortunate. The blaze destroyed the house and almost all of the family’s possessions, leaving them homeless, devoid of any possessions except the clothes on their backs and a precious few items, and grieving for their loss of a daughter and a sister._ **

**_“I remember it well,” Agatha Milton (a resident of the village near Musgrave Hall when the blaze occured) recalls. “You could see the flames from nearly a mile away. I remember getting close and seeing the four of them clutching at each other in front of the house. The little boy was crying.”_ ** (Underneath there was a picture of Musgrave Hall in all of its former glory, then a side picture of the charred ruins.) 

John breathed a sigh of relief: at least the tabloids thought Eurus had died there and then. However, he did notice that there was a sort of tragic poignancy that rang through the last section he had read. In less than a month, Sherlock had lost almost everything that was precious to him. For a five-year-old, that must have been hard to take. All of a sudden, he felt himself starting to understand just how Sherlock’s life had taken the course it had. There must have been sympathy showing on his face, as the detective glared at him. 

“Don’t!” Sherlock snapped as a sort of warning. Luckily, he'd abandoned the knife on the table. John nodded jerkily and went back to reading. 

**_The Holmes family would spend the next few years living at Sigur Holmes’ brother’s vast house located in the very heart of the capital city of London. Rudolph, affectionately known as ‘Rudy’ by his family, worked as part of Her Majesty’s Government, a career path which his oldest nephew has since followed, and allowed the family to live in his home. Many people argue that this is how Sherlock’s fascination with the city of London, and indeed the people that live there, began. The young boy took an instant shining to the city, and immensely enjoyed living at his uncle’s whilst his parents searched for a new home for the family._ **

As much as John hated these journalists for projecting Sherlock’s private life story (it’s called private for a reason!) he had to admit that they could write a bloody good story. John was hooked, and whilst he did feel immensely guilty about it, he did want to read on. There was another chunk about house-hunting and Sherlock’s various experiments over the years (including one about how Sherlock managed to Pavlov his entire Reception class, which made him chuckle), so John skipped ahead again. 

**_It was 1989 when Sherlock first showed his interest in investigating crimes and unusual happenings through something he called (and still calls now) the science of deduction. When Carl Powers tragically died during a swimming competition which he had travelled up to London to attend, the police ruled his death as accidental. Sherlock, however, disagreed, and tried his best to engage the police in his deductive reasoning. There was one slight problem: Sherlock was only six at the time, and the police assumed that he was simply overeager and wanted to impress. Sherlock still persisted, pointing out that Powers’ shoes were missing from his locker despite the rest of his clothes being there. Despite being dismissed back then, Holmes had the finally come-uppance in 2011, when he successfully proved that Powers had been murdered through botulinum poisoning by the criminal mastermind James ‘Jim’ Moriarty._ **

**_The dismissal of the police did not discourage Sherlock from pursuing a career in crime fighting._ **

John actually snorted at that one. 

“They’re making you out to be some sort of Avenger or something,” he commented. To his surprise, Sherlock cracked a smile. 

“I can assure you that nothing happens for another page or so,” he said. “They just examine my social life.” 

“Which was?” John asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Non-existent.” 

**_It was at the age of eight that Sherlock was diagnosed with Asperger’s, a subset of the spectrum condition autism which presents with symptoms suchs as a dislike of strong sensory stimulus, for example bright lights, an inability to read body language and a strong literal understanding of the world, leading to an individual often misunderstanding things such as sarcasm and linguistic humour. This diagnosis came in 1991 at a time when there was an almost hypervigilance for any form of autism, whether it be mild or severe, as a mass hysteria spread about the rumour that the condition was caused by the MMR vaccine, administered to most children during their toddler years._ **

“You… have autism?” John said in a surprised voice. The detective was looking at the floor, shuffling his feet on the carpet. 

“Yes,” he murmured, his voice barely audible. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to… think less of me.” 

John went over to him and tilted his head up, smiling warmly at him. 

“I would  _ never  _ think less of you,” he said quietly. “I love you. All of you. All you were, all you are and all you will be. I love all of it.” 

“Why is everything you say so damn romantic!?” Sherlock laughed with a sniff, trying not to show how close he was to sobbing his eyes out. 

“Do you want me to keep reading?” John asked, sounding serious. “Because I won’t if you don’t want me to.” 

“No, it’s okay,” Sherlock said, “You should keep going. You need to know.” 

Almost obediently, John kept going. 

**_After the events of Musgrave Hall back in 1988 and the loss of their sister, Sherlock and his brother Mycroft became inseparably close. The two would often be found performing science experiments together, and it is said that there was many occasion when Mycroft took the blame for Sherlock’s failed pranks or experiments-gone-wrong._ **

No, John thought, chuckling and shaking his head. That couldn’t be right. Sherlock and Mycroft, close? There was more chance of Atlantis rising up from the sea intact and with a thriving population than Sherlock and Mycroft merely getting along. 

Sherlock was watching him closely, and he realised that nobody needed much deductive reasoning to know that John had reached the part about his and Mycroft’s closeness. Silently, he put his hand over the paper, offering it to John. The army doctor looked at him in a slightly alarmed manner, but took it anyway and allowed Sherlock to lead him to their bedroom. Sherlock dropped to his belly, taking John catapulting down with a yelp with him. The detective shot his partner an apologetic look and dropped his hand before slithering on his belly under the bed, retrieving the dust-covered box that he’d seen just days earlier. He wriggled out and sat on the carpet with his back resting on the bed, patting the space next to him. John sat next to him, intrigued as he looked over Sherlock’s shoulder at the box as the detective gently blew the dust off the top of it, opening it up with a care that John had only seen before with experiments, Mrs Hudson and himself. 

“Sherlock, what are these?” he asked, gesturing to the contents of the box. 

“Photographs,” Sherlock said. “When I was six, my parents got me a Polaroid camera for my birthday: I’m pretty sure the picture is in one of the papers. And… well, I still have them all. And this is proof of how close Mycroft and I became.” 

Wordlessly, he handed over a selection of about ten or eleven photographs. John leafed through them, and was surprised (if a little shocked) to find that they were all Sherlock and Mycroft. Mycroft was a bit pudgier back then, if John was putting it lightly, but there were pictures of Sherlock on Mycroft’s back ( _ BOTH _ grinning at the camera- John was questioning whether the two had had a brain transplant or something), the two performing an experiment, Mycroft guiding Sherlock in putting something into the flame of the bunsen burner (John tried not to die from cuteness at Sherlock’s little pink tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated, a trait he’d carried into adulthood). One that made John dissolve into laughter was one from a day at the beach, where Mycroft was sat with what looked like an entire cheese board and a young Sherlock was creeping up on him with a bucket on wet sand. Their mother had her finger to her lips, and John assumed that their father was taking the picture. Sherlock had a little giggle at that one too. 

“These pictures are bloody good,” John commented as he put the beach one to one side. 

“Dad’s a professional photographer,” Sherlock explained. “Well, was, anyway. I think he got into a gallery once or twice. I remember being dragged to an opening of one when I was a teenager, but I was stoned through the whole thing so it’s a bit fuzzy.” 

John chose to ignore the last part of that statement and looked back down at the last photograph. It was a photograph from the famed Lady Bracknell performance. A thirteen-year-old Mycroft, stood next to a beaming six-year-old Sherlock, his arm around his younger brother’s shoulder. Once John got over his amusement at Mycroft’s crossdressing theatre days, he marvelled in the sentiment shown in the picture. As he thought about the brothers’ relationship now, he supposed he did see that sentiment sometimes. One time he could pinpoint was the plane. He didn’t think he’d ever forget the look in Mycroft’s eyes when he asked John to look after Sherlock. 

Sherlock glanced quickly at the photograph. A small smile grew on his face as he thought back to the history behind the photograph. 

_ The school hall erupted in cheers as the cast took their final bows. Sherlock was on his feet, but that was only because his parents were, and he watched in jealousy as his father did his incredibly loud whistle with his fingers, the one Sherlock couldn’t do no matter how much he practiced. Sherlock stood on his tiptoes, trying to see over the sea of people who were much taller than him to see his brother.  _

_ Whilst the play itself had been unbelievably dull, Sherlock had marvelled at how Mycroft could get up in front of everybody like that and perform. He didn’t even mess up any of his lines! Whenever Sherlock tried to talk in front of even his parents, he always stumbled his words and couldn’t get them out.  _

_ All of a sudden, the hall lights turned on, and everyone began to chatter all at once as they started to make their way down the steps of the seating feature. It was a lot of noise for Sherlock all at once, and he clamped his hands over his ears, giving his mother a begging look, even adding in his slightly-watering puppy dog eyes for extra effect. His mother assumed that he was tired (it was very late, and he was still only six) and swept him up in her arms, carrying him down the stairs. Sherlock let his head droop down and rest on her shoulder, resisting the urge to suck his thumb (a baby’s habit, he told himself disgustedly). He gave his father a small smile.  _

_ “What did you think, Bumblebee?” his father asked, reaching over and ruffling his son's hair.  _

_ “The story was boring, but Mycie was really good!” Sherlock said as enthusiastically as he could manage, stifling a yawn.  _ (At this age, it should be noted that Sherlock suffered with an unfortunate lisp: when Sherlock revealed this to John, the army doctor unlocked a new level of his vocal cords). 

_ “Remember to enunciate, Sherlock,” his mother said, but her tone was fond.  _

_ “Yes, mummy,” Sherlock replied before perking up and fixing his father with a look. “Did you bring the camera, daddy?”  _

_ “Take you me for a sponge, young ‘Bee?” his father said, pretending to be accepted and pressing his hand to his chest. Normally, Sherlock would have remained stoic, but he was tired and he began to giggle, his grip on his mother tightening. Sigur patted his satchel, which was hanging off of his shoulder. “Of course I have it.”  _

_ They were heading down the side of the stage towards the music room where they knew Mycroft was waiting for them. They were almost there as well, but then they were stopped by Mycroft's music teacher, Mr Stubbs.  _

_ “Hey, are you guys our Lady Bracknell’s parents?” he asked. He had a very clear and distinctive American accent.  _

_ “Yes, we are,” Sigur said, offering his hand to Mr Stubbs as Violet put on her winning smile. “It's so lovely to meet you.”  _

_ “Likewise,” Mr Stubbs replied. “The two of you have a one fine boy there: he could grow up to be a fabulous actor.”  _

_ Violet was beaming for real now, gently readjusting Sherlock on her hip as if she was trying to draw attention to him whilst her husband chatted to Mr Stubbs.  _

_ “And who's this little man?” Mr Stubbs said with far too much enthusiasm for Sherlock's liking, squatting down a little to be on his level. Sherlock simply tried to burrow deeper into his mother's shoulder.  _

_ “This is our youngest, Sherlock,” Sigur said, putting his arm around his wife and smiling down at Sherlock. “He's not usually so shy, but I think it's a bit late for him, isn't it, Bumblebee?”  _

_ Sherlock tried his very best to get as close to his mother as physically possibly.  _

_ “Oh no, it's cool, it's cool,” Mr Stubbs said quickly, flashing a pearly white grin at them. “Look, I've gotta get going, but I look forward to seeing you at parents’ evening to discuss Mycroft's progress.”  _

_ Then he was gone down the corridor, disappeared behind the swinging door. Sigur sighed as Sherlock took his face from Violet's shoulder.   _

_ “Alright then, Sherlock, out with it,” he said. “What was it this time?”  _

_ “He was a potential pae-pae-paed-” Sherlock stammered, struggling to get the word out. “Mycie taught me the word! P-”  _

_ “Paedophile,” his parents finished in unison, their faces the very epitome of shock as they exchanged a look.  _

_ “That!” Sherlock exclaimed. He didn't hear the rest of the conversation as his mother covered his ears and he hadn't learnt how to lip-read yet. It totally wasn't because he fell asleep for a little while.  _

_ When he woke up, they were no longer standing in the corridor but were in the music room. Sherlock let out a yawn, shifting against his mother just as she whispered,  _

_ “Be quiet, you'll wake Sherlock up.”  _

_ Sherlock's eyes snapped open, and he looked up, trying his very best not to yawn again. His hair was all stuck up on one side, but he didn't care as he looked around for his brother.  _

_ “Over here, Sherlock,” his brother called softly. The young boy looked over to the source of the voice, and the minute he clapped eyes on his brother his face split into a huge grin and he strained to be let down. Laughing softly, his mother put his down and watched as he barrelled into Mycroft's legs, hugging him tightly.  _

_ “Mycie, Mycie, Mycie, that was amazing!” Sherlock babbled, looking excitedly up at his brother. Mycroft smiled at his brother, putting his arm around him.  _

_ “Thank you, Sherlock,” he replied, managing to remain sincere despite still being dressed like a woman. “I was worried you'd find it rather boring.”  _

_ “Oh no, the story was very dull, but you were incredible!” the curly-haired boy said. “How do you remember all of that?”  _

_ Mycroft tapped his temple with his index finger.  _

_ “Mind palace.”  _

_ “Mind palace?”  _

_ “I'll teach you when you're a little older.”  _

_ Sigur cleared his throat, causing his two sons to turn to him, their faces comically similar, eyebrows raised.  _

_ “Now to the main order of business, boys,” Sigur said, reaching into his bag. “Photo time!”  _

_ Sherlock unhooked himself from Mycroft, standing by his brother's side, beaming even now. Mycroft gently put his arm around Sherlock. Their father knelt down on one knee, holding the camera in place.  _

_ “Say cheese!”  _

“I still can't quite believe that you two were like that,” John said in a hushed voice, turning the old, faded photograph over and over in his hands. “What happened?” 

Sherlock opened his mouth to reply, but they heard a bang from downstairs, and then faint swearing in a voice, whilst very faint, too deep to be Mrs Hudson. Instantly, the pair were in combat mode, breathing heavily as they exchanged a look. John, remarkably silently, crawled over to his bedside cabinet and retrieved his army-issue Browning. He knelt, hidden in a vantage point, and aimed his gun towards the door. 

Footsteps were coming up the stairs. Sherlock glanced at John. 

“I love you,” he mouthed before the door opened. 

John was ready to fire. He was  _ so  _ ready to fire, his finger resting on the trigger. When he saw who was at the door, he let out an annoyed huff, putting his gun down and getting up with the help of the bed. 

“Greg, you idiot, you should have knocked!” 

Lestrade gave a nervous laugh, but he looked urgent. 

“Have you seen the newspapers?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this. Please remember to leave comments and kudos!! Love you all xxx


	6. Genius Turned Fraud Turned Hero- the Sherlock Holmes Exclusive Six Years on (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhh I'm so sorry this took so long! Started back at school this week, and with exams and all I've just been a bit knackered. Whatever, doesn't matter, it's here now! Hope you enjoy this xx

_...Lestrade gave a nervous laugh, but he looked urgent._

_“Have you seen the newspapers?”_

Sherlock, still shaking a little from the shock, crawled out from behind the bed, glaring at Lestrade as John nodded wordlessly.

“Lestrade, you idiot, you scared us half to death!” Sherlock snapped, running a hand through his hair as he surreptitiously pushed the photographs under the bed with his foot. “What did you knock over downstairs?”

“The coat rack,” Lestrade said sheepishly, leaning on the doorway. “Sorry. Anyway, you’re avoiding the elephant in the room. The newspapers?”

The detective’s face drained of colour and he stared at Lestrade, just shaking his head.

“It’s not important,” he whispered.

“Sherlock, how the _hell_ did they get all of that information?” the DI asked, letting a slight bit of rage show on his face before falling back into sympathy. “The pictures, everything?”

“Where’s Mycroft?” Sherlock cut in. He was trying his very best to change the subject.

“At home, making a multitude of angry phone calls and freaking out a little bit,” Lestrade replied. “Sherlock, it’s an invasion of privacy-”

“Hang on…” John said as he went over to Sherlock and took his hand, rubbing gentle circles into his wrist. “Just _how_ much information do they have?”

Lestrade reached into the pocket of his coat and handed John a folded-up copy of the _Daily Mail_. John opened it up to the bookmarked page. There was a picture of a fifteen-year-old Sherlock. He was much taller now, and he was really coming into his own now, the puppy fat gone from his cheek, filling in his sharp cheekbones, and he was very gangly, his hair as curly and mental as ever. It seemed pretty innocent, but then John saw a picture of a hospital next to it and his heart seized.

“Oh God, they haven’t…” he gasped.

“They have,” Lestrade said, grimacing.

“Do they, um…” Sherlock stammered, gulping. The other two turned to him, and he looked hurriedly down. “Do they have all of them?”

“In all of their grizzly detail,” Lestrade replied. “All of the attempts, all of your drug history, everything.”

The detective sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, letting John go and putting his head in his hands, trying his very best not to embarrass himself as his world crashed down around him. He could see the future very clearly in his mind: no-one would come to him for cases anymore. Who would want to come to an emotionally fragile ex-junkie to see if their beloved partner was cheating? No-one. Exactly. He was out of a business. The bullies at the Yard, who already hated him, now had unlimited ammunition to fire at him. Without cases, Sherlock didn’t know what he’d do, only he did.

Drugs seemed like the inevitable route. It was always drugs, jerking him back like an invisible rope around his neck if he strayed too far. They were the very chains of his existence, keeping him from ever really being able to do… well, anything.

And John. If he was back at the drugs, John would be gone before Sherlock could say “I’m sorry”. If anything, that was something that could be an incentive for Sherlock _not_ to go back to drugs, but if the detective was being honest, no incentive had ever worked before, so why would it now? No, John was going to leave him, and he was going to be alone again. Before long, Mrs Hudson would kick him out, and Lestrade and Molly and Mycroft wouldn’t want anything to do with him, and then where would he be? Sherlock Holmes, once a mediocre celebrity, now found dead under a bridge on the edge of the Thames from a heroin overdose…

“Woah, Sherlock, slow your breathing down!”

The detective blinked and suddenly found himself back in the real world. He was trembling rather violently, and he could just hear his own laboured breaths over the pounding and the rush of his heart in his ears. His vision was blurry, and he could just about see John and Lestrade through the film of tears. John was swimming in front of him. Sherlock could feel the army doctor’s hands on his, but it wasn’t helping to ground him at all.

“I…” he stammered, blinking again and trying to clear his vision. It didn’t work, but he felt tears start to slip down his cheeks. “I-I-I-I, um…”

But the words refused to come out and he soon dissolved back into hyperventilation, feeling as if a rope was tied very tightly around his lungs. He pressed the heels of his shaking hands into his eyes, trying to control and ground his thoughts or his panic or just _anything_. John’s hands were on his wrists, he could feel it. He could feel it like he could feel Lestrade shuffling awkwardly by the doorway, even if he couldn’t see it.

“Sherlock, breathe along with me,” John voice drifted into his ear, kind and docterly in tone. The army doctor was doing exaggeratedly deep, even breaths, and whilst Sherlock found it utterly stupid and wanted to laugh his arse off about it, he inexplicably found himself beginning to breathe along with his flatmate. “That’s perfect, love, keep going like that.”

The breathing was helping, much as Sherlock was loathe to admit it, and it wasn’t long before he allowed John to lower his hands from his eyes, which were red raw and swollen from both the tears and the pressure which had been applied to them. Taking a shaky but thankfully normal breath, Sherlock slowly opened his eyes. He couldn’t look either of the other two in the face.

“I’m sorry you had to witness that… momentary lapse of emotional turmoil,” he murmured.

“Mate, you’ve got sod all to be sorry about,” Lestrade said. Sherlock looked up at him, but it mostly out of surprise. “No-one’s going to blame you for being upset about _this_ -” (He spat the word out, shooting a deadly look at the newspaper which lay abandoned on the bed) “trivialisation of your life story.”

“Strong feelings then, Greg,” John commented.

“It’s not just Sherlock, John. There’s a ton of stuff about Mycroft in there as well, and I am not one to let stuff like that slide.”

Sherlock ran his hand through his suddenly greasy-feeling hair, trying his best not to get too lost in his thoughts. He’d always found that a strange expression, to get lost in your thoughts. Personally, he’d _never_ got lost in his thoughts: he always knew exactly what he was thinking about. What else was the mind palace for!? Well, at least that had been true up until Mary’s death. Or when she shot him. Or even, if he were being fully honest, he could trace it right back to his return home after The Fall. More often than he would like to admit, Sherlock often found himself off on small, self-loathing tangents and he wouldn’t have the faintest clue on what got him there.

His thoughts had been rather scattered ever since Sherrinford. He hated saying it, but the whole debacle had really shaken him up. One might say that would be the correct response to finding out you have a secret psychopathic sister who _murdered_ your childhood best friend- oh, and you thought said friend was a dog. Some may say, anyway.

And, rather than organising and categorising his thoughts as they had done on all previous occasions, the drugs he had taken during the Culverton Smith case had blasted information, important information, to the very deepest and darkest fathomable corners of his mind palace, making them near-impossible to reach.

Simply put, his brain was loud.

Far.

Too.

Loud.

At any given time, day or night, whether it be light or dark, sunny or snowing, anywhere from January to December, Sherlock could probably name about fifteen different things that were circling in his head. And there’s always music, but never pleasant music, it seemed. A trashy pop song he’d heard on the radio. A client’s infuriatingly familiar ringtone. He’d once had ‘Baby Shark’ stuck on a loop for three weeks and he very nearly went mad. These thoughts, not just the average, mundane ones, but the dark ones as well, once contained and safely locked away, now ran rampant in his mind, and it was destroying the (relative) peace and personal order he’d come to (sort of) appreciate in his life.

Really, it just made him want to have a bit of a cry sometimes.

He glanced up at Lestrade. Deduction. It could ground him, and… Giles… (?) was like an open book. He looked him up and down, and then again just to be sure. There wasn’t anything new. He’d dressed in a hurry, that was evident from his tousled hair and rumpled shirt, the one with the ketchup stain from two days ago. He’d stayed at Mycroft’s last night (obvious). He was tired, perhaps from the case or perhaps from fighting out a fierce custody battle in the courts with his (and Sherlock didn’t say this often) bitch of an ex-wife (although with Mycroft on his side now, he was guaranteed at least partial custody, if not full, of his two children).

“How is Mycroft?” he asked quietly. It had been awkwardly silent for too long.

Lestrade shrugged.

“He seemed okay when I left him, but he is Mycroft Holmes,” he said. Sherlock made a small noise of agreement. “He’s infamously bloody good at hiding how he’s actually feeling.”

“Did he say whether he was…” Sherlock trailed off, clearing his throat. “Whether he was coming here or not?”

“He did indeed.”

They all turned towards the doorway, and sure enough there stood Mycroft Holmes, leaning on his trademark umbrella and bizarrely wearing something _other_ than a suit: a bespoke pair of chino trousers and a plain grey jumper than John had a feeling was given as a Christmas gift. In the true Holmes fashion, though, he still had his absurdly expensive coat and a scarf.

“Bloody hell, you actually own something other than suits,” John muttered.

“Phone calls made?” Lestrade asked, going over to the government official and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. Sherlock pretended to gag.

“Yes, thank you,” Mycroft replied, giving him a small, rare smile. “Sherlock, expect a frantic phone call from Mummy at some point today.”

“Why?” Sherlock snapped as he glared at his brother.

“Well, let’s just say she wasn’t fully aware of the extent of your little habit until today,” Mycroft said grimly.

“You never told her?”

Sherlock’s voice was thunderous, and Mycroft knew not to come any further into the room than the doorway.

“Christ no,” he said. “She would have been smothering, far too concerned than what was good for her or you yourself. You know that.”

Sherlock looked up to the ceiling, muttering quietly under his breath. He squeezed John’s hand slightly. The army doctor reciprocated the gesture.

“What does it say?” the detective finally asked after a few minutes of tense, thick silence.

“The article?” Mycroft asked.

“Yes. I only skimmed it. What does it say about my drug use and my attempts and… well, all of that unpleasantness?”

Mycroft sighed, but took a copy of one of the papers from his pocket, unfolding it and opening it to the right page. He looked down and opened his mouth to begin reading, but he suddenly found that the words refused to leave him mouth. He closed it again and took a deep breath before trying to start again, but once again they were like glue in his mouth.

“I-I can’t,” he said, his voice shaking as he thrust the newspaper at Lestrade. “You read it.”

“Myc, I don’t know if I can,” Lestrade said nervously. Mycroft offered it to John.

“Dr Watson.”

Facing up to the reality of the situation, John exhaled heavily and took the paper. Trying his very best to block his emotions, he began to read.

**_Certain bonds can only last so long. For Sherlock and his brother, their bond began to fray and end in 1994 when Mycroft left the new family home in Sussex to study politics at Oxford University. For most, this would have been perfect circumstances: no annoying older sibling breathing down your neck the year you started secondary school. This, however, was not the case for the eleven-year-old Sherlock, who after the traumas of his early childhood had developed deep attachment and abandonment issues. Mycroft's sudden departure from the everyday family life had a deep psychological impact on Sherlock and it drew a seemingly irreparable rift between the brothers, a rift which apparently remains to this day._ **

John thought it best to stop for a moment and to step back, allowing the brothers to absorb what they had just heard. Lestrade quickly followed him out into the hallway.

“Well, this should be interesting,” he murmured to the army doctor. “The Holmes brothers talking about feelings.”

John, despite the seriousness of the situation, had to repress a snort.

In the bedroom, the two brothers were meticulously avoiding each other's gaze. Mycroft was staring blankly at the wall, whilst Sherlock had taken a sudden interest in the carpet. Eventually, (although not until after a good fifteen minutes or so, in which time the other two managed to fix up some tea and toast and were happily munching away) Mycroft seemed to come back into reality. He walked over to the bed and sat down next to his brother, feeling numb and just a little foolish.

“Sherlock…” he tried to begin. It didn't feel right, so he cleared his throat and started again. “Little brother, I… I'm afraid I never realised that my leaving for university affected you so deeply. You seemed unphased when I left, so flippant. I thought you didn't care.”

There was silence, and Mycroft was convinced for a moment that he'd actually broken his little brother. Then there was a slightly stifled sniffling and Sherlock turned to him. His eyes were red and his cheeks were wet.

“Of _course_ I cared!” he replied, his voice hoarse. “You promised you would always be there for me, but then you just upped and left! I couldn't understand! I thought you'd left…” Sherlock's voice dropped to whisper. “I thought you'd left because of me.”

For quite possibly the first time in his life, Mycroft was completely and utterly speechless. All he could do was gape gormlessly at his brother, shocked by the enormity of his statement.

“Well, why on earth would you possibly think that?” he managed to splutter.

“Because I was always getting you into trouble!” Sherlock exclaimed. This was joined by elaborate hand gestures, Sherlockian for ‘I'm getting flustered please help’. “I never gave you a moment's peace, I always wanted to be by your side every second of every day and I was probably the most annoying brat you've ever met in your life. Of course you wanted to get away from me: it makes sense.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the whole of 221B. John and Greg were staring at each other with wide eyes, one eyebrow raised apiece. Mycroft seemed frozen for a moment before he reached over and pulled his brother into a tight hug. The army doctor and the DI caught one look at Sherlock’s perplexed and terrified look, and they simultaneously burst out into gales of laughter.

“Mycroft, what-” Sherlock said, his voice muffled by Mycroft’s jacket. His brother cut him off.

“It’s called a hug.”

“I know what a hug is, brother dear!”

“It’s because I’m sorry that you blamed yourself for something that was entirely not your fault,” Mycroft said. “I-I should have called more often, written to you, not got so absorbed in my studies…”

Sherlock silenced his brother by burying his face in his brother’s shoulder and trying his very best not to cry. Mycroft could feel the detective’s shuddering breath and fell quiet, taking the opportunity to hold his brother close.

Whilst they were occupied, John snuck his phone out and took a picture. He knew Sherlock would appreciate it when John got it framed.

He always did.

888888

Once Sherlock and Mycroft had managed to let go of each other, the four of them migrated into the living room. Sherlock was on his green armchair with John perched on his lap, whilst Mycroft and Lestrade took the sofa.

“Have you had any calls from your people, Mycroft?” Sherlock asked as he rested his arm around his boyfriend’s waist.

“Not yet,” the government official replied.

“What can they even do now?” Lestrade chipped in, entwining his fingers with Mycroft’s. “The story’s out.”

Mycroft sighed, but in a fond way.

“Well, we can stop the print of any more papers,” he said. “We can remove the online stories, and automatically block any mention of the article: don’t worry, Dr Watson, I’ll save your blog.”

“What?”

John looked up in surprise from where he had been gazing at Sherlock. “Oh, right, thanks.”

Mycroft opened his mouth to say something, but as if on cue, Sherlock’s phone rang. The detective picked it up from where it was sitting face-down on the armrest. Once he saw the contact name, he raised an eyebrow and glanced at his brother.

“Mummy,” he simply said.

“You have to answer,” Mycroft said matter-of-factly, gesturing to the mobile. “You know she’ll just keep calling.”

“Why did we get her a proper phone?” Sherlock grumbled before answering the phone. “What is it, mother? I am extremely-”

“William Sherlock Scott Holmes, cut the bullshit,” Violet said sharply. Sherlock stopped talking at once: John’s and Lestrade’s jaws simultaneously dropped. “I read the papers.”

“Mummy, I can-”

“Now, I’m not angry,” Violet cut in. “I just hate that you felt that way, so… so low. Your father and I love you: you can always come to us if you need us.”

“But it shouldn’t be like that!” Sherlock shot back. “I should be looking after you two, not the other way around.”

Violet sighed frustratedly.

“Still stubborn, I see,” she said. Sherlock cracked a smile.

“Standing for myself, just like you taught me.”

On the other side of the line, Violet smiled softly.

“I’ll be seeing you and John next week?” she asked.

“Yes, and Mycroft has a boyfriend now, gotta go, bye!”

Sherlock hung up very quickly and grinned at Mycroft, who was glaring at his brother with daggers in his eyes. Predictably, the government official’s mobile began to ring. Mycroft took it from his pocket and excused himself to the hallway for the undoubtedly awkward conversation.

“Anything from the autopsy of the Kentish Town murder?” Sherlock asked as if nothing had happened. It took Lestrade a moment to realise what had been said. He cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter.

“Um, no, not really,” he said. “All the autopsy report confirmed was what we already knew.”

“Cause of death?”

“Heart attack.”

“Any evidence of foul play on the body?”

“No, the body was too rotted to even see if there was a needle mark. We do have the muddy footprint from the flat,” Lestrade added brightly, but his face quickly fell. “But the bugger’s managed to leave no fingerprints, no hairs, nothing but that bloody footprint.”

“Did you put out the BOLO to the local hospitals and mortuaries?”

Lestrade sighed heavily.

“I’m not incompetent or brain-damaged, Sherlock. Yeah, I did it.”

The detective gave the DI a knowing smile, gently pulling John closer to him. The army doctor rested his head on Sherlock’s shoulder, kissing his boyfriend’s cheek. Lestrade grinned at them.

“I cannot tell you how happy everyone is to see you two finally together,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Sherlock asked, cocking his head to the side. John, now nestled into Sherlock’s shoulder, rolled his eyes.

“Well, let’s just say that we were all fed up with the one of you ogling at the other when they weren’t looking.”

Sherlock furrowed his brow, clearly trying to make sense of this whilst Mycroft came back into the room. He sat back down on the sofa next to Greg, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek whilst his brother was distracted.

“I hope you’re ready for a trip to Sussex next weekend, Gregory,” he said. Lestrade made a face.

“Myc, you know I’m supposed to be having Lucas and Sarah,” he said, his voice begging. “I haven’t seen them in over a month.”

“Oh, my mother said she’s perfectly happy for you to bring them,” Mycroft dismissed quickly before turning to the other couple in the room. “Sherlock, John, I assume you’re making your own way there?”

“Train,” Sherlock murmured. He was half-asleep really

“We’ll be fine here,” John said, flashing them a smile. “Go enjoy yourselves. I’ll call later.”

Mycroft and Greg glanced at each other. They were both wary of leaving the other two on their own, but on the other hand, they were desperate to get in some, ahem, _alone time_. So, after making John promise several times to phone in every few hours or so lest Mycroft install even more security cameras, they made their farewells and left the pair alone.

“My parents are good people,” Sherlock said all of a sudden. John gave him a look.

“Yeah, I suppose they are,” he replied. “Why do you say that all of a sudden?”

The detective gestured to the newspapers. John started: he’d forgotten that they were still strewn around the floor.

“All of these, they suggest that my parents were somehow at fault for how I turned out,” he explained. “I mean, they don’t explicitly state it, but they definitely imply it, in a roundabout sort of way. Which isn’t fair on them, because they were perfectly good parents. Best parents I could have asked for, really.”

He glanced up at John, who was clearly becoming a little uncomfortable with the conversation. “God, sorry, I totally forgot-”

“No, it’s fine,” John said quickly. “Hey, do you want me to nip to the supermarket and get some ice cream? Then we can just curl up with warm blankets and watch reruns of crap telly.”

Sherlock shook his head fiercely. His curls bounced around.

“I don’t want you to leave my side,” he said. He sounded scared, almost childlike. “Mrs Hudson has some downstairs?”

John thought for a moment.

“As long as we replace it, fine.”

And so that’s how they spent the anniversary of The Fall, curled up together on the sofa, watching any and all Jeremy Kyle reruns they could find. John giggling when Sherlock yelled at the telly. Sherlock getting a little teary when Carol cheated on Darren on some stupid soap opera (even though he would never admit it). Eating stolen ice cream, which somehow made it taste better.

Privately, they both realised something separately that night about each other.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah, I love the sibling bond! I've also purposefully made Sherlock's parents nice because I've read too many fics where they're horrible and I wanna be more canon-compliant, so yah. Next chapter I hope will be out by this time next week, but it will inevitably be late, so I apologise for that. Btw, the bit with Sherlock's mind being loud and all is kinda based on how I feel all the bloody time: is that bad?  
> Family dinner in Sussex, Lestrade's kids and an all-important conversation between Mycroft and John: all what's to come in the next chapter of whatever the hell this is!!!


	7. Silence and Stares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is early! Hope you enjoy this x

Mycroft Holmes, as a rule, thoroughly disliked children. They were loud and sticky and grotty, and they always seemed to want some sort of physical affection or emotional reassurance, both areas that Mycroft did not excel in. They were expensive (although lord knows Mycroft had more money that sense), always needing new clothing or toys, not to mention the extraordinary cost of the technology they would inevitably want as they got older. So no, Mycroft was not particularly fond of children, yet he was still sitting with two of them in the backseat of the Rolls Royce. 

The only reason that they were in the Rolls was because of Sarah. Gregory had originally planned to travel down to Sussex in his bashed-up Vauxhall, but once the car-mad girl had found out that Mycroft owned a Rolls Royce (several, in fact), she insisted that they go in that. Greg, never one to resist his daughter for long, relented within the hour. 

The four of them had been staying at Mycroft’s mansion for the past few days. Well, Mycroft called it a “tastefully designed, spaceful modern home situated in the London borough of Kensington”: the Lestrades called it a mansion. Mycroft suddenly had a new admiration for his parents after the last three days. 

_ “...and Lucas can’t have any of his food touching, like at all,” Lestrade explained to Mycroft, running a hand through his hair as he glanced back into the living room where the kids were playing Mario Kart.  _

_ “But… why?” Mycroft asked, bewildered. Greg shrugged.  _

_ “I don’t know, but he gets dead upset and refuses to eat if it does.”  _

_ “Dad, Lucas lost so it’s your turn to get thrashed!” Sarah called from the living room. Her accent, Mycroft noted, was remarkably similar to her father’s.  _

_ “Yeah, coming, princess!” Lestrade shouted back before turning back to Mycroft. “Right, so you know what you’re doing? You need-”  _

_ “Gregory, there’s no need to worry,” Mycroft said soothingly, resting his hands on his partner’s shoulders. “I used to take care of Sherlock whilst our parents were out at work. His palate was very similar to Lucas’. I know how to make turkey dinosaurs, curly fries and alphabet spaghetti.”  _

Mycroft internally groaned as he thought of the memory, sinking down lower in his seat. When had he become so frightfully domestic? He glanced at Gregory, who was entertaining Lucas with a Harry Potter book. He made all of the right faces and voices, and Lucas was laughing away at his father. Even Sarah was repressing a smile. Mycroft shook his head a little incredulously, fighting the urge to be like his brother and curl up on the deluxe leather seat. 

He must have unconsciously fallen into his mind palace as the next thing he was acutely aware of was pulling up in a motorway service station that they’d been at least 20 miles away from before and Greg touching his knee gently. 

“You alright?” Greg asked as Mycroft blinked blearily in a rare moment of slight vulnerability. “You look a bit peaky.” 

“I’m fine,” Mycroft said, repressing a yawn. 

“Liar. I know you didn’t sleep well, if at all last night.” 

The government official shrugged. 

“I suppose not,” he replied. “Why have we stopped?” 

“Lucas needed the loo and Sarah was hungry,” Greg said. “Look, stay here and try and get half an hour’s kip whilst we’re gone. Do you want me to get you anything?” 

Mycroft opened his mouth to eagerly request a ton of junk food, but then he remembered that he was supposed to be on a diet and snapped it guiltily shut, looking down to the floor of the car. 

“Just a coffee,” he mumbled. Greg frowned. 

“Sure?” 

“Yes, thank you.” 

Lestrade frowned again, but decided not to pursue it any further and ushered the kids out of the car, leaning into the driver’s window and whispering something Mycroft couldn’t quite hear. The driver nodded and rolled his window up before getting out of the car and heading towards the back of the service station, discreetly pulling out a packet of cigarettes as he went. 

Mycroft was alone. 

All of a sudden, he became very conscious of the fact that he was sitting alone in a very posh car in a random car park somewhere along the M25 with nothing to protect himself with, because the handgun that was usually stowed in the boot had been removed because children would be travelling in the car. He looked around nervously, and then pulled his phone out, just for something to do. Unfortunately, no major crises seemed to be happening, no governments or secret agencies going into administrative meltdown so he didn’t even have to distract his mind with. There was a single text from Sherlock:  _ Bloody train is late. Apologise to Mummy if you get there before me, as you probably will. Hope you’re having fun with Gavin’s children- SH.  _

Mycroft raised an eyebrow and typed out a quick reply. 

_ They are perfectly fine, thank you. Listen to John when you get on the train, brother mine- MH.  _

He turned his phone on silent and didn’t wait for a reply. 

Ducking his head down, he stretched out fully on the seat, trying to ignore how utterly silly he felt. To be fair, he was tired. The night before had been spent fretting and worrying, anxiously inventing catastrophic situations which he and Gregory would somehow find themselves in with his parents. His partner’s worried glances at him had not been missed. 

Sighing, he closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. Which didn’t work. He could barely hear his coherent, logical thoughts over the rowdy, idiotic ones, and unconsciously he reached for his phone and his earphones. Music always helped a little. 

He was barely halfway through the first song on his playlist before he was out like a light. 

888888

Victoria Station was completely overrun with people dashing all about, trying to find their platform or their other family members. The tannoy system had an annoyingly tinny quality to it, and all the seats were taken. Sherlock was sitting on his case on the side of the platform, his knees drawn almost up to his chest as he glared moodily out to the rails. John was tucked in between Sherlock and a bench, sitting with his back to the wall and his legs in a similar position to Sherlock’s. 

“I’m bored, John!” Sherlock complained, prodding the army doctor in the side of the head. John sighed heavily, letting his head fall back against the wall. 

“Read your book.” 

“Don’t want to read: it’s boring.” 

“Deduce people.” 

Sherlock winced. 

“Already am. Too much information: it’s highly unpleasant.” 

John’s face softened and he took Sherlock’s hand gently. 

“Well, tell me what you’ve figured out,” he said. “And for every one that makes me laugh, I’ll buy you a Dairy Milk bar.

“Make it Maltesers and you’ve got a deal.” 

They shook on it. This was a very regular arrangement: since Sherlock found that vocalising his deductions helped to enhance his thought process and quietened his mind a little and he had a surprisingly sweet tooth, and John needed a good laugh once in a while and needed his best friend to eat once in a while, they had created this little competition. Although this was starting to put John rather out of pocket with the amount of sweets he was having to buy since Sherlock knew his sense of humour extremely well. It was getting to the point where even Sherlock wasn’t able to eat all of them in one sitting, and the chocolate drawer in their fridge was starting to overflow. 

“You see that man over there?” Sherlock asked. John nodded. “He’s addicted to snorting baby powder.” 

John tried his very best not to laugh, but he ended up letting out a rather strange noise very loudly. Giggling, he looked wide-eyed at Sherlock.. 

“No way!” 

“Yes. And that’s a packet of Maltesers you owe me.” 

888888

Mycroft was still fully zonked out when Lestrade, Lucas and Sarah got back to the car. Greg poked his head in the driver’s window and had a quiet word before turning back to his kids. 

“Right, we need to be quiet because Mycroft’s asleep,” he said. Lucas nodded enthusiastically whilst Sarah shrugged, barely looking up from her phone. 

“Does Mycroft like Harry Potter?” Lucas asked, bouncing up and down a little. 

“You know, I’m not sure,” Lestrade replied as he grinned. “We can ask him when he wakes up.” 

“Why is he asleep in the middle of the day anyway?” Sarah chipped in, pocketing her phone. “He isn’t normally like this.” 

“No, well he didn’t sleep very well,” Greg said. 

Sarah was quiet for a moment as she thought. 

“He shouldn’t worry so much,” she finally said. Lestrade smiled softly at his daughter. 

“Exactly right, baby girl,” he replied. 

“I’m not a baby!” 

“You’ll always be my baby.” 

They climbed quietly into the car. Mycroft was curled up on one set of seats, his knees tucked into his chest. Lestrade couldn’t help but noticed how much younger Mycroft looked in his sleep. He didn’t looked stressed, which never happened when he was conscious. The DI gently smoothed over some of his partner’s ginger hair before getting his kids strapped in and instructing the driver to go. He cast Mycroft a longing look before picking Harry Potter back up. 

888888

The train had actually managed to arrive, and John was glad was that they’d booked seats, given how many people got on the train. Anyhow, his shoulder was playing up a little, so he didn’t exactly feel like hanging onto a pole for two hours. 

“My painkillers are in the front pocket of that bag, aren’t they?” he asked anxiously as they made their way up the aisle, rubbing his sore shoulder. Sherlock nodded, murmuring an apology as he accidentally hit some old dear with one of their many bags. 

“I checked,” the detective said. “Four times. They’re there.” 

Sherlock, for once, had completely misjudged where the train was going to come, and the conductors had been so eager to get everyone the long train that they had been forced to get on on the very farthest end from where their seats were. They were almost halfway when the engines began to rumble under their feet and the machine suddenly lurched forward. John stumbled, and he would have fallen if Sherlock hadn’t caught the back of his shirt at the very last moment. 

“Are you okay?” Sherlock asked frantically as he hauled a groaning John up. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” John replied quickly. 

Sherlock made a face, but didn’t pry any further as they made their way back up the carriage. John let out a sigh of relief when they found their seats, throwing himself into the window seat. Sherlock, who usually would have kicked up a massive fuss about not being able to sit by the window and deduce the surroundings, kept quiet, stuffing their bags in the overhead compartment and settling down next to John. He silently held out a headphone splitter. 

“I have a lot of Queen loaded up on my phone,” he said quietly. John gave him a sort of grimace-grin, pulling out his earphones. They both plugged in and were soon singing lowly along with  _ Somebody to Love _ , their fingers intertwined. John’s head was on Sherlock’s shoulder again. 

“Is your shoulder okay?” Sherlock asked as he put his arm around his blogger. 

“It’s just a bit sore, Sherlock,” John said. “Probably the cold getting to it and making it stiff.” 

“Okay, well just say if it gets really bad, and don’t not say anything as so not to worry me.” 

“I don’t do that!” John exclaimed angrily. 

“You do. I can tell when you’re in pain, John. I’m not an idiot.” 

“I never said you were an idiot.” 

“Whatever, not the point,” Sherlock said testily. 

“What had gotten into you these past few days!?” John demanded, pulling out his earphones in one jerky motion. Sherlock removed his slowly, almost loathingly. “You’ve been… I don’t know, tetchier than normal. And you’re pretty damn tetchy normally!” 

“Well, you’re the one who threw away my experiment!” Sherlock replied furiously, folding his arms across his chest. 

“You were rotting fruit in the airing cupboard!” 

“Seeing the decomposition rates of different types of flesh!” 

“It was attracting flies!” 

Sherlock didn’t have a response for that, so he just glared at John, who sighed heavily. 

“Look,” John began slowly. 

“Nope. You’re only going to lecture me.” 

Sherlock went to put his earphones back in, but John grabbed his hand before he could. 

“You know what, you’re right,” the army doctor responded hotly. “I am going to lecture you, because you’re quite frankly being a bit of a dick.” Sherlock gasped exaggeratedly. “No, you are. I get that that article hasn’t exactly helped matters and it might have dragged up some unwanted feelings for you, but you’ve barely eaten anything of any actual nutritional value and you’ve been the mardiest git in the known universe. I feel like we’re right back at the beginning, where you wouldn’t tell me a damn thing unless I pried it out of you!” 

“But you don’t understand, do you!?” Sherlock suddenly blurted. He was very pale, paler than normal, and he was shaking just the tiniest bit. 

 

“Then help me understand!” John yelled back. “How am I supposed to be there for you if I don’t know what you need?” 

“I don’t need any help!” Sherlock shouted. “I never needed it before!” 

“Yeah, and look where that got you.” 

John regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Sherlock’s face just crumpled and he stared at John, gobsmacked. When the army doctor reached out to touch his shoulder and opened his mouth to apologise, the detective flinched away and wordlessly shook his head. 

“Sherlock…” John murmured, at a loss for what to do. 

“No,” Sherlock whispered. His voice broke halfway through the word. 

They dissolved into silence and stares. 

888888

“Mycroft… c’mon, honey, it’s time to wake up…” 

Mycroft groaned as he slowly came back to his senses. He shrugged off the hand that was shaking his shoulder, burrowing further into his leather makeshift pillow. 

“Go ‘way,” he muttered. Then he heard Lestrade’s soft laugh and he looked up towards to the source of the voice, cracking one eye open. 

“Morning, Mr Sleepyhead,” Greg teased. “Or should I say afternoon?” 

“We’re in Sussex already?” Mycroft said bewilderedly, glancing outside as he hauled himself into a sitting position. 

“Yeah, we got here about ten minutes ago,” Greg replied, sliding into the seat next to Mycroft. “Your mum’s entertaining the kids whilst your dad’s gone to pick Sherlock and John from the train station.” 

“Why didn’t you wake me up when we got here?” 

“You looked so peaceful. Thought I’d give you a few extra minutes.” 

Mycroft gave his boyfriend a rare smile as they sat in the back seat of the car, one door open so the sunlight and the sounds of the country could stream in. 

“I value you very much, Gregory,” Mycroft said. His voice was faint. Greg smiled softly. 

“Me too, Myc. Me too.” 

They were about to get out of the car, but then Sigur’s car came screeching up the drive, pulling to a stop outside of the house. Sigur got out, looking harried, and that’s when they heard the shouting. The couple looked at each other, eyebrows raised. 

“They’re having a bit of a spat,” Sigur called over as a way of explanation. 

“We can tell,” Lestrade shouted back. He tugged Mycroft out of the car and they went over to Sigur. Lestrade offered his hand, and Sigur took it. “Mr Holmes, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” 

“Call me Sigur, please,” he said warmly. “It’s so good to finally meet you.” 

“Likewise.” 

“AND ANOTHER THING-” they all heard Sherlock yell. Mycroft and Sigur winced. 

“I feel sorry for John,” Mycroft commented. “When’s Sherlock’s in one of his moods, he can go on for hours.” 

“They were at it when I came to get them,” Sigur said. “Screaming their heads off at each other about anything and everything. I think they’re on… intelligence and social skills now.” 

“Any idea who started it?” Greg asked. Sigur shook his head. 

“No. John managed to stop for long enough to tell me it’s been like this almost all the way from London, save half an hour Sherlock spent in his mind palace thinking up all of the worst insults possible.” 

It was Lestrade’s turn to wince now. A car door slammed, and the three of them turned to see Sherlock storming away from the car. He pushed past them without so much as a word and went into the house. It wasn’t long before they heard a bedroom door slam. 

“So I’ll get the bags, shall I?” John shouted from the car as he got out and closed the door loudly. “Bloody typical!” 

Lestrade cast a look to the other two which clearly said  _ if I don’t come back alive, tell my mother I loved her.  _ Father and son nodded tersely. Sigur looked like he was fighting the urge to salute him. 

“John, hey!” Lestrade called as he made his way over. “Um, wanna explain what’s going on with you and Sherlock?” 

“Oh, he’s just being a cock as per usual,” John replied heatedly, wrenching the boot open. Lestrade walked round and helped with their cases (they were all staying for a few days). 

“What happened?” he asked. John sighed heavily, slumping as he sat down on the edge of the boot. Lestrade sat next to him cautiously. 

“You know what, I’m not even really sure,” the army doctor replied. He looked positively drained. “I just made an off-hand comment and he just…” he shrugged, and Lestrade didn’t miss the spasm of pain that flashed over his face. “Flipped out. I may have accidentally made a very hurtful comment when he said he didn’t need help.” 

“The half-hour in the mind palace?” 

“Yeah.” 

John was rubbing his bad shoulder again as he looked at the DI. “We’ve been arguing over literally everything there is to argue about for an hour and a half now, and I’m bloody exhausted.” 

“What was the comment?” Greg said. 

“Told him he was being tetchy.” 

“Why was he being tetchy?” 

“Just my shoulder, nothing major,” John said quickly and almost guiltily, looking at the floor now rather than Greg. The DI made a face, knowing that the night would not be pleasant. Instead of probing any further, he grabbed a case. 

“Better get these inside, huh?” 

888888

Sherlock’s childhood bedroom was exactly as it had been when he was a child: that is, to say, an absolute tip. Books were strewn across the floor, the bed was unmade and a half-used taxidermy kit sat in the corner of the overflowing desk. Sherlock threw himself down on the double bed and curled in to face the wall, inhaling the somehow still familiar scent of the sheets. He could hear John and Lestrade talk talk talking away down on the driveway and clamped his hands over his ears, still unbelievably pissed off. He wasn’t aware that his mother was in the room until the mattress sagged a little and her hand was on his shoulder. 

“Leave me alone,” he snapped, not even turning to face her. 

“It was going to happen eventually,” his mother replied matter-of-factly. 

“Well, yes, I knew  _ that _ ,” Sherlock said. He took his hands from his ears and sat up, swinging his legs over the side so he was sitting next to her. “I just didn’t think it was going to be so spectacularly awful.” 

“Yes, Dad did say there was a lot of shouting,” Violet said. 

“And in public as well.” 

“It isn’t good, darling.” 

“No, not really.” 

They shared a small giggle, and Violet nudged her son with her elbow. 

“But you do have to apologise,” she said. Her voice was deadly serious, telling Sherlock she meant business. Didn’t stop him from trying to argue. 

“He started it!” 

“No, he said you were being tetchy,” she shot back. “ _ You  _ brought up your experiment and started the argument.” 

“But he  _ threw it out _ ,” Sherlock said petulantly, folding his arms over his chest. 

“To be fair, darling, you tried to conduct the same experiment when you were twelve and I had to throw it away as well, didn’t I?” 

Sherlock took a moment to glare moodily out of the window. 

“You did,” he said, his voice barely audible. 

“And why was that?” 

“Because it was attracting wasps and flies.” 

“And what are you allergic to?” 

“Wasps.” 

“Exactly.”

Violet smiled at him in an almost self-righteous way, knowing that she’d won. She had her confirmation when Sherlock sighed and nodded before leaning over and kissing her on the cheek. 

“Fine, I will go and apologise,” he said. 

“That’s my boy,” she said fondly. 

Sherlock got up and made to go towards the door, but then he stopped and turned back to his mother. 

“I’m sorry,” is all he said. 

Violet was confused. She wasn’t a woman who was often confused, and she did not like it one little bit. The last time her son had sounded like that, he’d been trying to kill himself.

“Whatever for?” she exclaimed. 

“Well, er, the drugs,” Sherlock said quickly. “For putting you through all of that worry and heartache. It wasn’t fair, really.” 

Violet patted the area on the bed next to her. Sherlock came over and sat down next to her. 

“Many say that drugs are an inherently selfish choice,” she said. Sherlock’s eyes widened. “And I suppose, to some extent, that can be true for some. Real-” 

“What are you getting at, mother?” Sherlock interrupted. He sounded a little irked off. 

“ _ Really _ ,” Violet repeated, putting emphasis on the word and giving her son the stink eye. Sherlock looked to the floor apologetically. “That isn’t true for everyone, especially you, my precious boy.” 

“Why do you say that?” Sherlock asked. Violet scoffed. 

“Take one look at your early childhood and tell me that doesn’t have anything to do with the drugs.” 

Sherlock looked his mother over critically for a moment. 

“You blame yourself,” he said. Violet smiled sadly. 

“Sometimes, yes, I do,” she replied. 

“You feel guilty?” 

“Occasionally.” 

“But why, mummy?” Sherlock asked, confused. “I have my own autonomy: my drug use had nothing to do with you. Neither did my self-harm or my attempts. You really mustn’t blame yourself for the struggles I’ve gone through. There is nothing you could have possibly done, so don’t feel guilty or worry about me, please. It just makes me feel even worse."

Violet rested her hand on her son’s cheek, wiping away the single stray tear that had managed to escape. They smiled at each other gently. 

“I love you,” Violet whispered. “And I’m your mother. I’ll always worry about you, sweetheart, and nothing will ever change that. But I’ll try to curb the guilt a bit, if it helps you feel a bit better.” 

“Thank you,” answered Sherlock. “And I love you too, Mama.” 

They shared a hug, and it kind of reminded Sherlock of the first day back from the hospital after his first attempt. 

_ Sherlock barely looked up to the car window as they pulled into the driveway. He folded his arms grumpily and glared at the floor: the thick white bandages on his arms rubbed against the sleeves of his hoodie.  _

_ “We’re home!” Violet said in an overly-cheerful voice, turning to her son. “You excited about being able to go back to your room?”  _

_ “Mm,” Sherlock murmured.  _

_ “I got you that new book you wanted, the  _ 1001 Poisons and Fungi _ ,” she told him. Sherlock didn’t grace her with a reply, rolling his eyes. “Maybe that’ll keep you occupied for a bit.”  _

_ “Don’t wanna read,” Sherlock mumbled. Violet’s face fell for a moment before she began to smile again.  _

_ “Okay, how about you help me make dinner?” she asked. “It’s lasagne: I know you love that.”  _

_ “Boring. Not hungry.”  _

_ “You could help me weed the garden,” Sigur chipped in. Sherlock shook his head as he made a face.  _

_ “Might just sleep,” he said. Violet and Sigur exchanged a worried glance, but nodded at their son.  _

_ “I’ll make you up a bed on the sofam” Violet said. “The doctor said-”  _

_ “Yeah, I know what she said,” Sherlock snapped, his voice harsh. “Can we just stop talking about this?”  _

_ “Okay, son, if that’s what you want,” Sigur said gently. It was silent again.  _

_ “Mycie’s coming back home for dinner tonight,” Violet announced brightly.  _

_ “Is he really?” Sherlock said. His tone was icy. “How nice of him to deign to grace us with his presence.”  _

_ “Now, Sherlock, he’s been worried about you,” Sigur admonished in the lightest way possible.  _

_ “Then why didn’t he come and see me?” the teenager shot back.  _

_ “He’s had exams and hasn’t been able to get away,” Violet said. “He’s phoned every day asking about you.”  _

_ “Nosy git,” Sherlock muttered, but it was inaudible to anyone but himself.  _

_ They made their way into the house together. It wasn’t a long walk, but after two weeks in hospital and a week and a half of hunger strike, Sherlock had been left weak and emaciated, and so by the time they were in the living room he was near-exhausted. He collapsed down onto the sofa, trying to catch his breath whilst his father took his bags upstairs.  _

_ “Oh, my baby boy,” Violet murmured as she sat down next to her son, playing with his crazy curls as she held him close. “Don’t ever leave me.”  _

_ Sherlock, for once, held his tongue and let her hold him.  _

It would have been nice if the moment had lasted, Sherlock mused as he thought back on it afterwards. But no. Standard. 

The second that they broke apart, a hauntingly recognisable, blood-curdling scream echoed up from downstairs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really hope you enjoyed this! Please remember to leave comments and kudos. Hopefully next chapter will be up soon: sorry for the cliffhanger! Xx


	8. That One Staple British Photo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy I'm back! I'm so sorry this took so long: exams and whatnot. Not sure how long the next chapter will be, soooooooo yeah. Got a speaking exam this week so wish me luck lol

_ … blood-curdling scream echoed up from downstairs.  _

Sherlock’s eyes immediately widened in fear and he seemed to simply freeze up, staring at his mother in shock. 

“Mummy…” he murmured. His breathing was heavy. “It’s John. I know that scream.” 

Violet gasped, her hand covering her mouth. 

“What’s happening?” she asked, her voice hushed. 

“He’s having a flashback,” Sherlock replied. 

Without warning, he turned with a swish of his long coat and virtually threw himself down the stairs, sliding down the banister to save precious seconds. Now normally, Violet would have yelled at him for scratching the wood, but it was special circumstances so she let it go. 

“John!” the detective hollered, almost slipping over in the cobbled corridor as he sprinting towards the muffled yelling. 

“Sherlock, thank God you’re here,” Lestrade said when Sherlock reached the kitchen, catching the younger man before he could go any further. Sherlock stopped: he was panting. When he looked down, he saw a metal dish on the floor. It must have been John’s trigger when it dropped. 

“I heard John scream,” he said. “I got down here as fast as I could.” 

Lestrade checked his watch, raising an eyebrow. 

“Ten seconds,” he replied. “Yeah, pretty damn quick. Anyway, someone knocked that dish off. Made a massive noise and John just… stopped. I know you’re fighting, but please-” 

“Where is he?” Sherlock interrupted. Lestrade gestured. 

“Living room.” 

“Status?” 

Oh, so they were doing this formal-style, Greg thought, okay. 

“Not good. He’s full-on freaking out, yelling about needing to get medics and snipers and all sorts.” 

“How’s his shoulder? And you shouldn’t call it a freak-out, it’s a flashback.” 

Sherlock’s tone was icy, and Lestrade flushed, looking to the floor. 

“Seemed like it was hurting him earlier,” he answered, his voice subdued. 

Sherlock nodded before cautiously making his way into the living room. 

John was crouched behind the sofa. Sarah and Lucas were nowhere to be seen, presumably having been sent upstairs. Mycroft and Sigur were standing (although it was more like cowering) in the doorway as John yelled about needing an extra med kit, stat. 

He was holding his gun far too close to his head for everyone’s liking. 

Sherlock crept forward, trying to hide his horror at the situation as he did so. He couldn’t help but feel just a little responsible for this: surely their argument could not have helped matters. Glancing up at his father, he shot his a quick look that said  _ if I don’t get out of this, you are not to blame him for it _ . Sigur nodded almost imperceptibly, and Sherlock darted forward to duck down next to John. 

“Private Murray, thank God you’re here,” John said, sounding relieved. His Captain Watson Voice (as Sherlock liked to call it) had dropped now, but Sherlock’s heart sank. He knew the name Murray: Bill Murray, to be precise. Young kid, only nineteen. His name did not carry very good connotations. “Did you bring that med kit I asked for?” 

“Um…” Sherlock stammered. He wasn’t sure what to do for once. Was he supposed to play along or try to pull John out of his flashback? 

“Dammit, Bill, did you or not!?” John snapped. The Captain Watson Voice was back. “I need it really bad.” 

“Erm, no, sorry,” the detective said. Playing along it was, then. “Got here as quick as I could, Captain.” 

John huffed out a sigh, but nodded. 

“Right, well there’s an injured child in that building over there,” he said as he gestured towards the kitchen. “I’d go myself, but…” 

He motioned towards his shoulder with his gun and grimaced before putting the gun back up by his cheek. Sherlock gave a small gasp as he realised what it meant. He hadn’t noticed that John had had one hand clamped over his injured shoulder the whole. When the detective placed his hand over John, he could almost feel the heat pulsating from the old wound. 

“Jesus Christ, John!” he exclaimed, breaking the facade for a moment. “Wh- um, why aren’t you in the med tent?” 

“No time,” John panted out. His breaths were coming very fast now, with small grunts of pain to accompany. “Now go get that kid, okay?” 

Sherlock nodded slowly, dreadingly. He’d only heard the story once, but he knew exactly how it ended. He didn’t get up, but John’s eyes began to travel towards the kitchen. Sherlock held his breath as he gently put his hand on the gun and clicked the safety on. He watched the army doctor’s eyes widen and him open his mouth the scream. That’s when Sherlock took the chance to jump on John. He seized the gun and threw it across the room, as far out of reach as he could get it. Underneath him, John squirmed, but Sherlock kept holding him down. The first time that John had had a flashback in Sherlock’s presence, they very nearly had a full-on physical fight because Sherlock didn’t know what was happening when John came at him, but he had learned. 

“John… stop moving, you’ll… make… it… worse!” he said through gritted teeth. John shouted some very colourful expletives at him. “Lestrade, help me out here!” 

Greg came forward and took John’s feet. Between the two of them, they managed to manhandle John into the downstairs bedroom and lock the door behind them. 

Sherlock let out a breath as they gently put John down on the bed. The army doctor’s shouting had lessened a little, and his body was somewhat limper. The detective whipped off his coat and his blazer, rolling up the sleeves of his purple shirt before clamping his hands over John’s wrists. 

“Look at me,” he said, his voice firm. John pursed his lips and shook his head, his eyes wandering over Sherlock’s head. “John.” 

“I’m not telling you anything,” John replied. His voice was flat and emotionless. 

“I don’t want any information.” 

“You always do.” 

“I just want you to look at me.” 

“Why?” John shrugged. 

“I… I can’t explain it. Please?” 

John sighed heavily, but he lifted his head and looked Sherlock in the eye. That was all that was needed. Lestrade watched in slight horror as the fog in John’s eyes began to clear, and as it did, his bottom lip began to tremble. Sherlock crept forward and sat cross-legged in front of his partner, taking his hand gently. John locked eyes with Sherlock again and he flew forward, burying his face in Sherlock’s shoulder. The detective held him close, one hand on his hair. 

“Shh, it’s alright, you’re safe here,” he said in a hushed voice. “We’re in Sussex, not Afghanistan. It was just a flashback, nothing more than a flashback. A metal dish made a very loud noise, it’s not your fault.” 

“My stupid brain shouldn’t do that, though!” John exclaimed, but it was muffled by Sherlock’s shirt. 

“Your brain isn’t stupid,” Sherlock soothed. A little part buried deep inside of him shuddered and scoffed. “Didn’t we discuss the biological causes of your PTSD?” 

John sniffed, wiping his nose on the back of his hand as he brought his head out of Sherlock’s shoulder. He nodded. 

“Should still know the difference between a metal dish dropping and a gunshot,” he mumbled. Sherlock exhaled loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“PTSD is a survival strategy,” he said. “The symptoms result from an aim to help survive further traumatic experiences, a perfectly sensible decision for the brain to make, and includes raised levels of stress hormones and other changes in the brain. The hypothalamus sends signals to the adrenal glands to release adrenaline into the bloodstream and increases the chances of survival, whilst the amygdala’s function is increased, activating the fight-or-flight response and increasing sensory awareness. The hippocampus’ activity is reduced by the stress hormones, and this makes it less effective at memory, meaning that both the body and the mind remain hyper alert because the decision-making ability is reduced. Trauma affects the function of the prefrontal cortex, changing behaviours, personality, and complex cognitive functions such as planning and decision-making. Must I repeat myself again?” 

John stared at him, a little gobsmacked. Lestrade was leaning in the doorway, more than a little bit lost. 

“Why are you both staring at me?” Sherlock said tremulously, looking between then nervously. His hand flew to his elbow. “Did I say something wrong?” 

Greg recovered first. 

“No, Sherlock, you didn’t,” he replied. “It’s just… impressive that you know that much about PTSD.” 

The detective looked down, and if Lestrade didn’t know better, he would have said that he was blushing. 

“I learnt for John,” Sherlock mumbled. 

“Okay, point made,” the army doctor suddenly said. The other two turned to him. “Sorry for causing a scene. Greg, sorry for scaring your kids.” 

“John, it’s fine,” the DI said. “They’re tough. They’ll be fine.” 

Sherlock took his partner’s hand again. 

“I have my violin,” he said. “Don’t fret, John. You’ll sleep fine tonight.” 

Both John and Greg made a face. “What?” 

“Well…” Lestrade tried to say, but he inevitably dissolved into giggles. 

“It sounds like a euphemism, love,” John explained, unable to hide his smile. Sherlock’s cheeks heated up. 

“In my parent’s house!” he exclaimed, and the disgust made itself clear on his face. “No! Just… eugh!” 

There was a knock at the door. Greg turned and opened the door a crack, poking his head out. It was Violet, her face the very picture of concern. 

“Oh, hey, Mrs Holmes,” he said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Call me Violet, dear,” she replied. “How is John?” 

The DI glanced backwards. Sherlock and John were sitting cross-legged on the bed facing each other, talking animatedly. Sherlock looked offended, as if John had just said something extremely scandalous, but there was a twinkle of mischief in his eye and the army doctor was giggling, so the conversation must have been alright. 

“I think he’s doing okay now,” he said as he slipped out into the corridor, closing the door behind himself. “Sherlock really helps him when stuff like this happens.” 

Violet smiled. 

“Sherlock has spent so much of his life alone,” she said. “I’m just glad he’s found someone so perfect for him.” 

Lestrade grinned. 

“So am I.” 

“Sherlock just seems so much happier!” 

“Yeah,” the DI agreed. “Definitely seen a significant reduction in danger nights ever since they met in 2010.” 

“Those are words straight out of my Mycie’s mouth,” Violet said proudly. “Was it really 2010 that they met?” 

“I know, it’s insane!” Lestrade laughed. “It feels like not two minutes ago that Sherlock was showing up at my crime scene with John with that cane on his arm.” 

Violet chuckled, a small smile growing on her face. 

“Well, tell the lovebirds that dinner will be ready at six, and if Sherlock says he’s not hungry, tell him his throat will be slit if he doesn’t show,” she said perfectly pleasantly. Lestrade did his very best not to be disturbed. “I’ve sent Sarah and Lucas out blackberry picking down the lanes with Sigur. Thought it might be best to get them out of the house.” 

“Where’s Mycroft?” Greg asked. 

“Living room making some important phone call.” 

Lestrade let out a huff, a flash of annoyance making itself known on his face for a second. 

“I told him to leave the bloody conference calls in London,” he said.

“Well, you know what Myc’s like,” Violet replied. “Very work-oriented.” 

“ _ Too  _ work-oriented.” 

Violet nodded her agreement. 

“Is he difficult to pry away from it?” she asked almost anxiously. “The work, I mean. He used to work himself half-to-death, nearly as bad as Sherlock sometimes. None of my children have ever had much self-preservation.” 

Greg suddenly found himself thrust into a moral maze? Did he go behind his boyfriend’s back and report about his life to his mother, like some sort of covert spy operation? He glanced wistfully at the living room. Honesty, he thought. It was like he told his kids: honesty will always get you places. 

“He’s better than he used to be,” he replied. “He makes time for me, even for Lucas and Sarah despite the fact that they aren’t even his kids. He’s sweet. Kind. Surprisingly good at karaoke. He’s just… Mycroft, I suppose. I wouldn’t want him any other way even if he is a pain sometimes, because I love him just the way he is.” 

Once it registered in his brain what he’d just said, his eyes widened and he clamped his lips shut. Thank God Mycroft didn’t hear that, he thought. 

“Not said it yet?” Violet asked with a smirk. 

“Well, not explicitly to each other’s face whilst we were both aware that the other was conscious, no,” Lestrade said, sheepishly scratching the back of his head. 

“Myself and Sigur were exactly the same,” Violet said. She sounded nostalgic. “Spent absolutely bloody  _ ages  _ dithering around each other, never quite sure when to say those three little words. It was me who eventually took the plunge, and he felt the same way, of course. We were engaged not six months later.” 

Greg smiled softly. 

“That’s a really beautiful story,” he replied. Violet shrugged off-handedly. 

“I have a lot,” she said. She had the same mischievous spark in her eye as her son. “I also have a lot of baby pictures of Myc you might be interested in.” 

Lestrade grinned widely. 

“Definitely interested.” 

888888

“They closed the door,” Sherlock said critically, quirking an eyebrow. “You know that means that they’re talking about us.” 

“Who cares?” John replied. “Won’t be anything bad. Can’t be. We’re a fucking power couple.” 

“Power couple?” 

The detective seemed confused. 

“Basically we’re awesome.” 

“Oh,” Sherlock said. “Well, in that case, I agree completely. Yes, we are.” 

“Hell yeah we are!” John exclaimed, giggling. “I can’t believe you didn’t know that but you know  _ yeet or be yeeted _ !” 

John was bouncing a little on the bed. He was jittery and a little hyperactive, a bit like a child on a sugar high. He hadn’t noticed Sherlock’s carefully manicured nails digging into the skin on his elbows. 

“Are you okay?” the detective asked, concerned. 

“Yeah, fine,” John replied as he bounced more frantically. “Why d’you ask?” 

Sherlock gestured silently. 

“This.” 

“Oh, right, the bouncing, yeah,” John said quickly. “My body is still flooded with adrenaline, so-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o…” 

He held out his hand as proof. It was shaking ever-so slightly, much like the rest of his body. Sherlock took his hand with one his whilst the other stayed on his elbow, giving him an innocent, gentle look. 

“Calm down,” he said. “I love you, okay? Don’t worry about anything. We help each other through things. You’ve seen me when I’m weak, and you don’t judge me, so why would I you?” 

This would have been a lovely sentiment if John had actually been listening. Instead, Sherlock’s fingers on his elbow had caught the army doctor’s attention, and he reached forward, wrenching the detective’s hand away and taking his arm. 

“Jesus Christ, what was that for!?” Sherlock squealed, hissing in pain. He looked down as blood began to bead on his arm. He bit his lip. 

“I’m sorry, but look what you were doing!” John replied, gesturing to his elbow as he wiped the blood away. There were deep red indentations in the skin and the whole area was red and inflamed, the skin starting to flake away in places. 

“Oh,” Sherlock murmured. He sounded almost guilty, as if he’d been caught doing a bad thing. “I, um, I didn’t even realise I was doing it.” 

John gave him a look. His adrenaline seemed to be fuelling his concern now. 

“You can fool many people, Sherlock Holmes, but I am not one of them,” he said. “You know that if you start doing stuff like this, it’s only going to get worse, right? And I’m here for you, if you want to talk.” 

It was Sherlock’s turn to give him a look, and he was just about to open his mouth to retort when the door opened and Lestrade poked his head in. 

“Your mum says that dinner’s at six, and Sherlock, she’ll slit your throat if you’re not there,” he said. Sherlock made a face. “Jesus, mate. Is your arm okay?” 

Both Sherlock and John looked hurriedly down. Sure enough, a small trickle of blood was making its way down Sherlock’s arm. 

“Scraped it on the cabinet,” Sherlock blurted. “Exposed nail head. I’m fine, it’s just a scratch. You know how much they bleed.” 

Lestrade gave them a perturbed look, but nodded his head and closed the door. Sherlock let out a sigh of relief. 

“That was a close one,” he said. 

John shook his head as he got up, dragging Sherlock with him into the ensuite bathroom. It had a strangely musty smell, as if a very old lady and her vast collection of mothballs had been living in it for the last twenty years. John turned on the tap, and after a few dusty splutters, the water began to run. The army doctor thrust Sherlock’s arm under the water before reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a small packet of antiseptic wipes. Sherlock gave him another weird, confused look. 

“I travel with you, I have to be prepared,” John said. “I have your bloody Epi-Pen in my coat pocket because you don’t carry it around with you.” 

“I’ve never needed it!” 

“Wait until you’ve been stung by a wasp and get back to me.” 

That threw Sherlock into a strop, and he glared at his reflection in the mirror, apparently the best he could get under the circumstances. Now, before John had come along, he probably would have simply gone and fetched one of his best razors and spent a good hour or so happily slicing away at his skin. But now John was around, it wasn’t so easy. Sometimes, he very much missed watching the blood bead and drip down his arm, down onto the white or dull-grey tiles of whatever disused public toilet he was sitting in that day. According to John, it wasn’t healthy, apparently, so he had reluctantly stopped. Admittedly, it did make his day much easier and his hydrogen peroxide could be kept in the experiments-only cupboard, but that didn’t mean that the niggling voice at the back of his head had been informed of that. It kept telling him to get the knife, get the razor, just to do what he wanted… 

But no. He shook his head, glancing down at the small dents in his arm. 

“Hey, you okay?” John murmured, rubbing the top of Sherlock’s arm gently. “You just… I don’t know. Do you need to talk?” 

Sherlock looked down, then back up at John.  

“I'm fine,” he said stiffly. 

“Liar.” 

Sherlock made a face. 

“I just…” 

He sighed frustratedly, unsure of how to phrase his thoughts. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t like talking, despise it, in fact.” 

“Really? Never would’ve guessed,” John replied sarcastically. Sherlock chuckled. 

“Just make sure I don’t do something stupid,” he said. The army doctor’s expression suddenly darkened and he frowned. 

“Do you…  _ think  _ you’ll do something stupid?” he asked as he took Sherlock’s arm from the water and began to wipe it down with the antiseptic wipe. 

“Not really, no,” Sherlock replied, watching John work. “Although I’m never fully sure with this sort of thing.” 

John nodded and bit his lip. He glanced towards the doors, eyes darting around all the windows. They were easy, too easy to escape from. Unless they were handcuffed together, John had no doubt in his mind that Sherlock would try to get out whilst he was asleep. Even then, Sherlock could easily pick locks. The handcuffs were child’s play for him. What, he wondered, had Sherlock’s mother done when he was a teenager? He would have to ask her after dinner. 

“You do have your violin, right?” he said in an attempt to pull himself out of his thoughts. 

“Yes,” Sherlock said as John placed a plaster over the scratch. 

“Okay. Good.” 

They were quiet as they came out of the ensuite. Sherlock quickly rolled his sleeves down and put his blazer back on, scarpering out of the door before John had a chance to say anything else. It wasn’t long before he heard a groan and he ran out of the room, fearing something bad had happened. 

Oh, how wrong he was. 

When he got into the living room, Mycroft was nowhere to be seen. Sherlock was on the sofa, head in his hands. Spread out on the floor, with Violet and Lestrade sitting next to them, were what seemed like hundreds of baby photos of Mycroft and Sherlock. 

“This is…” John chuckled, shaking his hand and coming forward, kneeling next to Lestrade. 

“Not happening,” Sherlock finished from the sofa. His voice was sulky. 

“How do you still have all of these?” Lestrade asked Violet, gesturing to the photos. He was holding one of a three-year-old Mycroft dressed in a tiny tux that even John had to admit was adorable. 

“Luckily, when Musgrave Hall burned down, all of our photos were being stored at Sigur’s brother’s whilst we were having our loft restored,” Violet said. 

“Hang on,” Sherlock cut in, coming over from the sofa. “I thought you said that they were at Grandma’s?”

“No, no, darling,” Violet said. “Rudolph offered to keep them for us.” 

“Yes, it does sound like Uncle Rudy,” Sherlock remarked. 

“You two got on well, then?” Greg said as he moved onto that one staple British photo that is a baby’s first trip to a pub. It was Sherlock this time, his crazy curls peeking out from under a small sunhat. The detective groaned when he saw it. 

“Why do we still have that?” he said, shooting a glare at his mother. “But yes, Rudy and I got along famously. He is somewhat of a- what is it called, John? A gay icon.” 

“Is?” John repeated. “He’s still alive?” 

“Yes, still lives down in Kensington,” Sherlock replied flippantly. “I went to see him only last month! He says you sound very nice, by the way.” 

“I’m sure he said more than that,” Violet commented, raising an eyebrow. “This is Rudy we’re talking about.” 

“Guess what he said, mother,” Sherlock said. Violet made a face, and Sherlock copied it. “Exactly.” He turned back to John and Greg. “Officially, he’s always been reported as an eccentric bachelor. He wasn’t quite so… wild when we were staying with him. Given that it was during the eighties and early nineties, we might just have saved him from a very grizzly death.” 

Both John and Greg chose to ignore the implications of that. John picked up another photo. It was Sherlock and who he supposed was Uncle Rudy, feeding the ducks at Hyde Park. The photo was taken from behind, but he could just about make out the young Sherlock’s jubilant smile. Grinning, he held it out to Sherlock. The detective took it, and a soft smile grew on his face. 

“That wasn’t long after we’d moved in with him,” he said, showing the photo to his mother. She grinned as well. 

“No, it wasn’t, dear,” she said. “We went out for a little exploration around London. You and Mycroft wandered off. Myself and your father were going absolutely  _ spare  _ trying to find you!” 

_ “Where are the kids?” Sigur asked. Violet turned from where she had been gazing out over the Thames from Westminster Bridge, giving her husband a look.  _

_ “They’re with your brother,” she said.  _

_ “No,” Sigur replied, pointing to the end of the bridge where Rudy was stood, whispering something in someone’s ear. Violet’s face drained of colour and she grabbed her husband’s hand, dragging him over to Rudy. Once there, she pulled the six-foot-four government official down to her level.  _

_ “Rudolph Alistair Christopher Holmes, what have you done with my children!?” she demanded. Her glare could have melted steel, but Rudy kept his cool.  _

_ “Geez, Vi’, calm down,” he said, laughing a little. “Mycroft told me he was going to find you. He took Sherlock with him. Last time I saw them, they were heading down towards you together.”  _

_ “Oh God,” Violet murmured. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”  _

_ Rudy paled as he realised what was happened. _

_ “Vi’, they’re smart kids,” he said nervously, reaching out and awkwardly patting her on the arm. “They can’t have got far.”  _

_ “We-we have to call the police,” Violet stammered.  _

_ “Woah, slow down!” Rudy exclaimed. “I’m sure they just went to have a bit of an exploration. You know what those two are like.”  _

_ “But I gave them explicit instructions not to leave our sight!” Violet said, gesturing around the three of them.  _

_ “Darling, since when have Mycroft and Sherlock listened to us?” Sigur chipped in. Violet shot him a glare and he fell silent.  _

_ “He has a point, Vi’,” Rudy said. “Think: where would Mycroft and Sherlock want to go in London?”  _

_ Violet let out a shaky breath, wiping her eyes.  _

_ “Well, we’ve already been to both the Science and the History museum,” she replied. “You took them round Parliament just. We started at Buckingham Palace. Sherlock has had a certain fascination with Shakespeare recently, so-”  _

_ She stopped, gasping. Rudy grinned.  _

_ “The Globe theatre,” they said in unison.  _

_ “You knew that, didn’t you?” she said, narrowing her eyes. Rudy laughed.  _

_ “Vi’, I know those two kids,” he replied. “They’re fine. I just thought you might want to figure it out.”  _

_ She punched his tweed-clad arm as Sigur hailed a cab. He shot her a hurt look, clutching at his arm.  _

_ “Why the hard punch, sis?” he said as they climbed into the cab. “The Globe theatre please.”  _

_ “I’m not your sister,” Violet said pointedly.  _

_ “Sister-in-law is close enough.”  _

_ Violet gave him another glare, and that was enough prompt for Rudy to fall silent for the rest of the journey as she and Sigur discussed potential punishments. Deep down, Rudy knew that they would never actually implement these, but he decided against voicing this as his arm had already received enough bruises for one day.  _

_ When the cab pulled up by the Globe, it barely had time to stop before Violet was jumping out, running towards the entrance to the theatre. Rudy threw a few notes at the driver, who grinned at the sheer amount of money he had just received. That was, until Sigur held his hand out for the change.  _

_ Violet was virtually screaming at the front desk staff, who were looking about ready to call security on her. Rudy sighed, shaking his head as he made his way over. He put his hand on Violet’s shoulder, silently telling her to stop. She did.  _

_ “I’m so sorry about my sister here, ladies,” he said, turning on the silky-smooth-I’m-loaded charm. The two young girls on reception immediately began to melt like butter, letting out a few high-pitched giggles. “It’s just her kids ran off. They’ve only just moved her, you see. Their house burned down. They lost their sister.”  _

_ A good sob-story always worked. One of the girls put her hand over her mouth, whilst the other’s eyes began to fill with sympathetic tears. “You wouldn’t happen to know if two kids came in at any time in the past half-hour? One of them’s about thirteen, gingery hair? He came in with a little boy on his arm. Black curly hair, looked about five or six?”  _

_ The girls looked at each other and they began to nod. One of them grabbed the clipboard where they recorded all of their customer purchases.  _

_ “Yeah, we had two kids just like that come in about half an hour ago,” she said, pointing to her clipboard. “Bought two last-minute tickets for Macbeth. The play started about twenty minutes ago.”  _

_ Violet breathed out a thank you before grabbing Rudy’s hand and pulling him towards the entrance to the stage. Rudy gave the girls a small wave, and they giggled and waved back.  _

_ “I really hate it when you do that,” Violet said through gritted teeth. “Leading them on like that when nothing will ever happen between the two of you.”  _

_ Rudy kept his mouth shut, nodded politely as they burst through the stage door. On the stage, the witches were sharing their prophecy with Macbeth and Banquo. Violet scanned the “pit” as it was referred, and sure enough, she could see them. They were right by the stage, Sherlock balanced on Mycroft’s hip. Mycroft was quietly explaining the Shakespearean language to his brother.  _

_ Somehow, Violet just didn’t have the heart to disturb them. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Uncle Rudy is a gay icon. I love him. Hope you enjoyed this! Please remember to leave comments and kudos, it really means a lot xx


	9. Thank You For All Your Loving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the title is a shamelessly stolen from an Elton John song because I went to see Rocketman yesterday. So sad. So much gay. SO GOOD. Seriously, go watch it if you get a chance. I so nearly cried like five times. Anyway, on with this. Sorry it's so late, I kept getting my laptop out... and then procrastinating on my phone for hours. Here it is now, though. Please enjoy!

By the time that Sarah, Lucas and Sigur returned from their blackberry picking, it was almost six o’clock and the sun was starting to lower in the sky, casting a dark shadow over the fields overlooking the house. Violet had closed the curtains and instructed her younger son to start a fire, which he had tried to gleefully do with some crushed-up match heads and a hammer. John had put a stop to that pretty quickly, and so the fire had been lit without any major explosions. Lestrade had grabbed Mycroft’s phone at the two-hour mark and, after muttering a half-apology, had hung up on  _ “the president of Argentina, Gregory!”,  _ as Mycroft had angrily informed him afterwards. Lestrade had simply murmured that they needed to talk about it. They had left for a walk across the fields and presumably an argument nearly  an hour ago. 

Sherlock and John were curled up on the sofa together- well, as best that Sherlock could curl up in a bespoke suit- watching a movie that was showing on the telly. Neither of them were paying much attention to it. They were too distracted with whispering silly little things in each other’s ear and giggling away. Every time Violet came into the room, she shook her head and laughed a little to herself. 

When the other three got back, Lucas immediately sprinted into the living room and flung himself onto the sofa with a delighted squeal of “Uncle Sherlock!”. Sarah rolled her eyes. 

“Ah, yes, Lucas, hello,” Sherlock said almost awkwardly as he sat up and Lucas clambered onto his back, his hands scrabbling at the detective’s hair. “God, you’ve grown since I last saw you!” He glanced over at Sarah, giving her a smile. “You too, Sarah. You barely came up to my chest last time we met!” 

“Yeah, well, I somehow managed to grow,” Sarah replied, a slight smile on her face. “It’s been a while.” 

“The hamster’s dead, isn’t it?” Sherlock asked. Sarah nodded. “Did your mother let you do the dissection?” 

Sarah made a face. 

“No. She made me  _ bury  _ it,” she said disgustedly. Sherlock frowned. 

“Sorry.” 

Sarah shrugged, coming over and sitting next to him on the sofa. 

“Nah, it’s fine,” she said. “Thank you for the taxidermy kit, though. I keep it at Dad’s, because Mum would flip if she knew I was into that stuff.” 

“Sarah, never let anyone tell you your interests are wrong,” Sherlock said, his voice deadly serious. “They are  _ your  _ interests, not anyone else’s. If you never remember anything else I tell you, at least remember that one.” 

“Thanks, Uncle Sherlock,” she murmured, reaching forward and giving him a tight hug. Sherlock smiled softly and hugged her back. 

“Dinner’s ready!” Violet called from the kitchen. Sherlock let Sarah go and he hoisted Lucas onto his shoulders, carrying the giggling boy into the dining room. 

In the middle of the long, rosewood table stood a beautifully steaming leg of lamb. There was roast potatoes, creamy mash, stuffing, peas, carrots, green beans, broccoli and cauliflower cheese, Yorkshire puddings and a glorious smelling gravy that even Sherlock had to admit made his mouth water. A fine-looking bottle of red wine was sat at the head of the table. 

“Mummy, this looks incredible,” Sherlock said as he set Lucas down, taking John’s hand. “I don’t think we’ll be able to eat all of it, though.” 

“Nonsense,” Violet said, wiping her hands on a tea-towel. “Five healthy men like you lot are, this will be gone in no time.” 

“Three,” Sherlock corrected. “Lestrade and Mycroft are still out.” 

Violet frowned, looking towards the door just as Mycroft and Greg burst through it. They were both flushed and their hair was wild. 

"Sorry, sorry," Lestrade panted out as Mycroft closed the door behind them. "Thought we'd be back earlier but then we got chased by a very angry-looking cow." 

"It was a  _ bull _ ," Mycroft hissed, glaring at Sherlock as the detective began to laugh. Even John had to hide a smile behind his hand. 

"Yes, of course it was," Sherlock said sarcastically. 

"Boys!" Violet snapped. They both fell silent, Mycroft's mouth, which he had just opened to retort with a no doubt scathing remark, clamped shut and the latecomers made their way to the table. Greg hugged his kids and listened to Lucas' ramblings about blackberries whilst Mycroft took his seat next to his father. Sherlock and John were opposite, whilst Greg and Lucas sat facing each other, and Sarah and Violet took the ends of the table. 

Under the table, Sherlock reached out for John's hand. John’s hand was a source of comfort for him, a constant, a reminder that he was no longer as alone as he sometimes thought he was. The army doctor immediately took Sherlock’s hand, giving it a small squeeze to reassure him that he was there if he needed him. 

“So, how is London these days?” Violet asked as everyone began to plate up. She nodded in slight approval when she saw John forcing food on to Sherlock’s plate. 

“It seems very busy all the time to me,” John said, placing a chunk of lamb on his plate. “But then again I did grow up in a small town. Even the supermarket feels busy here.” 

“It’s exactly as it was in the old days, just with more protesters,” Mycroft replied dryly. “Makes for a nightmare trying to get to work.” 

“Shut up, you’re not the one who has to help deal with them,” Greg cut in with a laugh. 

“Sarah, Lucas, how is school?” Sigur said, leaning over to see them better. Sarah shrugged, taking a big mouthful of peas so she wouldn’t have to answer. 

“I love school!” Lucas exclaimed, dropping his knife and fork with a clatter. “Whenever I get stuck on my homework, my dads say I can call them anytime! Dad’s better at Geography, but Mycie’s  _ awesome  _ at History! He helped me with my Countries project!” 

“Alright, Lucas, you’ve gotta eat, buddy,” Lestrade said somewhat awkwardly, casting a quick look at Mycroft. Instead of the fear he had been expecting to see, Mycroft had a small shine of pride in his eyes, the type he’d only ever seen before when Sherlock solved a particularly high-level case. Violet was beaming. 

“So, Sherlock, John, have you been thinking about kids?” she said pleasantly. 

John choked on a roast potato. 

Sherlock pounded him on the back with a panicked look. The army doctor coughed out a raspy breath and gave Sherlock a grateful look through watery eyes. The detective passed him a glass of water. 

“No we haven’t, mother,” he said perfectly politely, as if nothing had happened. “I’m sure we’ll get round to discussing it at some point.” 

“You better do,” Violet replied, one eyebrow raised. “I want grandchildren that I can spoil from both of you, thank you very much.” 

Sherlock simply nodded and rolled his eyes. 

The rest of the dinner went by without much of an incident. Sherlock and Mycroft both left about half of their plates, feigning poor appetite, but once the glares from Lestrade, John and their mother became too much, the food disappeared surprisingly quickly. Sherlock disappeared as soon as they were allowed to leave the table, claiming that he had an especially important client waiting on a video call. John was helping Violet with the dishes whilst the others relaxed in the living room. 

“I am  _ so  _ glad you are a proper part of the family,” Violet said as she wiped down a plate. “Not that you weren’t, of course,” she added, glancing over to him. “But it’s… official now, isn’t it?” 

John nodded, humming his approval. 

“I really think you’ll do Sherlock some good,” she continued, passing him a plate. 

“I hope so,” John replied. He was half-frozen in place. 

“Oh, you will,” Violet said. “He’s already looking less skinny than bef- oh, what are you doing?” 

John had abandoned the plate he’d been drying and gone over to the kitchen door, looking around conspiratorially before shutting the door firmly behind him. He lent against it, tapping out a random, anxiety-fuelled rhythm on the white wood. 

“Violet, I need to ask you something,” he said. His voice was trembling and he was looking down, eyes closed. “And you have to promise not to tell Sherlock.” 

“Okay…” she said, but she sounded a bit perturbed. 

“So- um, I’ve been thinking…” John began. He shook his head and laughed a little. “I know Sherlock and I haven’t been together long, but-” 

“Yes,” Violet interrupted. She was beaming. 

“Wh-” John stammered before stopping, staring at her in confusion. She chuckled a little. 

“You’re going to ask me if you can ask for my son’s hand in marriage,” she said. “My answer is yes.” 

“R-really?” John gasped as his face broke out in a huge smile, his eyes wide and his hand over his mouth. “Oh-oh my God, I really didn’t think you’d give me permission!” 

“Do you have a ring?” Violet asked. 

“Um, yeah,” the army doctor replied. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small ring. It was a simple silver band, with a small sapphire embedded in the middle. 

“Oh, John, it’s beautiful!” she gushed, taking it from him and examining it closely. “Where did you get it?” 

“It’s been in the family for years,” he said. “It was my great-great-grandfather’s, I think.” 

“Sherlock will love it,” she said, smiling. 

John grinned back as he tried to contain his yell of delight. 

888888

“Just… repeat everything you just said, but slowly, Sherlock. I couldn’t understand a word you said.” 

Sherlock sighed heavily, resisting the urge to put his head in his hands. He looked back up at the computer screen. 

“Must I really, Harriet?” he said. 

“Uh, yeah!” Harry Watson replied. For the first time in years, Harry was sober. Her dyed-black hair was styled in a short side swept pixie, she was dressed in a light pink turtleneck sweater and her arms were folded over her chest. Clara was sat next to her, looking equally as judgy. They were both wearing engagement rings again. “Johnny is my baby brother and I need to be sure about what you’re asking me.” 

Sherlock sighed again. He looked down to the keyboard and then back up at the webcam. 

“John and I have been together for four months, three weeks, four days, eleven hours and twenty-seven minutes,” he said. 

“Precise,” Clara commented. Sherlock glared at her and she fell silent, giggling into the sleeve of her hoodie. 

“Look, Harriet, it is traditional to ask your partner’s parents for permission to ask for their hand in marriage,” Sherlock said. “Originally, it was a rather sexist tradition, as women were considered property, so really the practice should be outlawed, but-” 

“Get to it, Sherlock,” Harry cut in. She seemed a little irked off. 

“Right, yes,” Sherlock replied. “Since your parents are both deceased, you are his next-of-kin and therefore the next person to ask. So, Harriet Eleanor Watson, do you give me permission to ask your brother to marry me?” 

Harry and Clara looked at each other, and then back at Sherlock. 

“Please give us a minute to decide,” Harry said. She covered the microphone and then, at the last minute, the webcam too so the detective could not read their lips.

Sherlock sighed frustratedly. As much as he was confident (and he was!) that Harriet would say yes, he was still somehow a little nervous. He watched the black screen anxiously, chewing his bottom lip. 

It was another few minutes before the screen was uncovered. Harry's arms were crossed again, and Clara was looking fierce. Sherlock couldn't help but gulp. 

"We have come to a decision," Harry said, her voice giving off an almost superior tone. "When you died, it hurt Johnny badly." The detective opened his mouth to speak, but Clara gave him a deadly look and he closed it again. "But you did it for his own good, so he wouldn't get murdered, so I suppose I can see the logic in that.” 

“I don’t know you very well, but if what Harry told me is right, you clearly love him enough to know when you need to let him have his space and his own time,” Clara added. 

“In your crazy mad fast speech, I could see how much you love him,” Harry said. “And it is for that reason that I am saying yes: you can ask him to marry you.” 

For only the second or third time in his life, Sherlock was completely and utterly speechless. It was like when John first told him that he loved him: all he could do was stare gormlessly and smack his mouth opened and closed like a fucking goldfish. 

“Um, Sherlock?” Harry’s nervous voice came through the speakers. “Has the screen frozen or do I need to call John to come get you?” 

“I-I-I…” he murmured. 

“Ah, he lives!” Clara said sarcastically. Harry gave her a scathing yet loving look. 

“Sherlock?” she said. “C’mon, I’m gonna need more than that.” 

“Just… thank you,” Sherlock said. “I mean, I was going to do it anyway even if you said no, but it’s nice to know I have John’s family’s support, because you all mean so much to him, and I-” 

“Okay, Sherlock,” Harry laughed. “It’s alright. Just… he likes romance. Rom-coms. Go big but private.” 

Before Sherlock could say anything more, she hung up and he was staring at his periodic table (John had made him change it from a rotting foot) home screen. 

He swore loudly, slamming the lid of the laptop shut. He heard Lestrade yell faintly at him from the living room but he ignored it as he got up and stomped towards the kitchen, banging on the door. 

“Mummy!” he shouted. “M _ u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u _ m!” 

“Alright, Sherlock, I’m coming!” Violet exasperated shout came from inside the kitchen. “Have some patience, boy!” 

Sherlock leant his head against the doorframe, letting out a shaky breath. One of his hands travelled to his blazer and began to fiddle with one of the buttons, an old nasty habit of his that had cost his many-a nice jacket in his youth. What was his mother going to say? She seemed to love John, sure, but what if she told him it was too soon, that he was making a terrible mistake? Worst still, what if she went behind his back and  _ told John _ ?” The army doctor would freak out big-time, surely? No, they weren’t ready for this. Were they? Oh God, what if he was going too slowly and John was getting restless? What if he wanted to leave him? 

“Sherlock? You’re white as a sheet, dear!” 

His mother’s voice pulled him out of his overthinking. He opened his eyes and looked towards her, giving her an unconvincing smile. 

“May I- um- talk to you please?” he asked, his voice quiet. Violet nodded. 

“Talk,” she said. 

“In private, please.” 

Violet had to stop and steel herself for a moment before nodding again. She slipped out, closing the kitchen door silently behind her and letting her son lead her to the downstairs bedroom, where he and John were staying. 

The minute the door closed, Sherlock burst into tears. 

“Oh baby…” Violet cooed, going over to him and pulling him into a hug. He buried his face in her shoulder, holding her close. “Oh, don’t cry, darling. It’s alright, I’m here baby.” 

“God, I’m just being stupid, so stupid!” Sherlock bawled. 

“You’re not stupid, honey,” Violet soothed. “Did you start overthinking again?” 

The detective nodded. 

“I was, er, just talking to John’s sister,” he said. “I’m going to ask John to marry me.” 

Violet couldn’t contain her gasp. She looked at him, grinning, and her grip on him tightened. 

“You mustn’t let your mind run away with you,” she said. “I’m sure John will be delighted when you ask him.” 

“You really think so?"

“I know so, baby.” 

Sherlock looked up at her with a disbelieving look in his eyes. Violet had to suppress a sigh and also a sob. Why did her son carry such self-loathing that he couldn’t see how much he was loved? 

“Is it going to be a bad night?” she asked quietly. Sherlock nodded almost imperceptibly, and Violet knew she was in for a long night. 

_ It was 2.a.m, but Violet felt like it was much later.  _

_ It must have been the change of setting that set him off, she thought. They’d been staying at Rudy’s for a few weeks whilst some building work was being done on the house, and it was a very sudden change for the teenager going from the quiet countryside to the busy city, especially so soon after his hospitalisation. They should have stayed with her parents, she thought, but Sherlock seemed to love Rudy so much! The three of them, Rudy, Sigur and herself, were going spare trying to keep Sherlock on the rails. The budding detective could be downright crafty when he wanted to be.  _

_ Violet was in the living room, her head in her hands. Sigur was next to her, one arm around her shoulders. Rudy was in his study, “de-stressing” apparently. The couple both knew that that meant cross-dressing. Not that they minded, of course.  _

_ Even the sound of the rushing water couldn’t disguise the sound of Sherlock’s vomiting. This had become a disturbingly regular occurrence. The psychiatrist said it was a side-effect of the anti-depressants and possibly the depression itself, but Violet couldn’t help but worry. He was her son, her baby boy!  _

_ The water turned off abruptly, and Violet took her head from her hands, sitting up straight. It wasn’t long until the bathroom door opened and Sherlock dragged himself into the living room, throwing himself onto an armchair with a groan.  _

_ Simply put, he looked rough. His alabaster skin somehow seemed paler than normal and he was soaked in sweat: his inky black curls were plastered to his forehead with it. His hands, resting on his lanky legs, were shaking ever-so-slightly. His lips were dry. The bags under his eyes were huge.  _

_ “Are you okay, son?” Sigur asked. Violet looked at her youngest son anxiously.  _

_ “‘M fine,” Sherlock murmured. It wasn’t very convincing.  _

_ “Why don’t you try and get some sleep?” Violet said. Sherlock shook his head.  _

_ “Not tired,” he said as he tugged at the sleeve on his short-sleeved pyjama top.  _

_ “Maybe-”  _

_ “Oh my God, just leave me alone!” Sherlock yelled, forcing himself up and storming down the hallway, ignoring his parents’ worried shouts after him. Once he had found his uncle’s study in the long procession of doors, he wrenched the door open without bothering to knock.  _

_ “Uncle Rudy! I just--”  _

_ He froze when he saw his uncle.  _

_ Rudy was in full drag. He was in a beautiful ball gown, which had a simple black top and then a gold skirt, which was longer at the back and embellished with decorative leaves in impressive detail all the way round. He was wearing a brunette wig, pulled up in a high ponytail. The stilettos were at least three inches high. His make-up was perfectly done, and if Sherlock hadn’t known better, he would’ve said that he was standing in front of a woman. The teenage boy didn’t know what to do, so he just gawped.  _

_ “Oh, erm, Sherlock, hey,” Rudy said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Why, um, why are you here?”  _

_ “I-I…” Sherlock stammered before managing to gather his wits. “Er, Mum and Dad were getting on my nerves so I, ah, came here to, er, cool off.”  _

_ “Right,” Rudy nodded, his hands on his hips. “Sorry you had to see me like this.”  _

_ “Oh, no, I don’t mind!” Sherlock said quickly. “I’m just… confused, that’s all. I didn’t realise that men could wear women’s clothes.”  _

_ Rudy threw his head back and laughed, long and slow and deep. The teenager gave him a slightly perturbed look.  _

_ “Gender parameters are nothing but social constructs and paradigms created by narrow-minded simpletons who wanted to feel superior,” the politician said. “It’s the same with most religions. The Catholic Church was traditionally a control tool used by straight white men to swindle the village idiots out of their hard-earned money and to have an excuse to beat women into submission. The Bible is bananas insulting to us queer folk!”  _

_ “What does ‘queer’ mean?”  _

_ Rudy stopped dead in his tracks, turning to his nephew in disbelief.  _

_ “Are you telling me,” he said very slowly, coming towards Sherlock with careful, measured steps. “That you, a boy who knows about two-hundred and forty types of tobacco ash-”  _

_ “Two-hundred and forty-three!”  _

_ “Two-hundred and forty-three, sorry. You’re telling me you don’t know what queer means?”  _

_ Sherlock nodded. He was trembling a little and he was starting to sweat again. Rudy sighed, shaking his head.  _

_ “Give me ten minutes to get changed and cleaned up,” he said. “Apologise to your parents for running off, give your mother a hug and then meet me back here.”  _

_ “Yes, Uncle Rudy,” the budding detective said.  _

_ “Good boy.”  _

_ “And Uncle Rudy?”  _

_ Rudy turned to him. Sherlock grinned. “Your make-up looks great.”  _

_ Rudy shooed him out, but the minute the door closed he was beaming.  _

_ 888888 _

_ Sherlock disgustedly wiped his mother’s lipstick imprint from his cheek as he approached Rudy’s study. His hand was on the doorknob before he remembered that he was supposed to knock and raised his fist, rapping one, two, three times.  _

_ “Come in!” Rudy’s deep voice came from inside the study. Sherlock took a deep breath, then twisted the doorknob and entered.  _

_ Rudy was sat in his huge comfortable armchair, his legs crossed and a glass tumbler of whiskey in his hand. A lit cigarette was dangling from his lips. A fire was roaring away in the hearth, illuminating his dark-coloured thick fur-and-silk dressing gown, silk pyjama bottoms and luxurious leather slippers. When he saw his nephew, he took the cigarette from his lips and crushed it in the ashtray, pressing it down as he gestured to the chair opposite him.  _

_ “Have a seat, Sherlock,” he said warmly. The teenager crept forward and tentatively sat down. “Now, tell me what you already know about gay people.”  _

_ “Fifteenth November 1985,” Sherlock immediately began to recite. “The unknown killer continues to devastate families up and down the country. It seems to mostly affect the gay community.” He looked up at his uncle.  _

_ “That ‘unknown killer’ was HIV/AIDs,” Rudy said. “It killed Freddie Mercury and thousands of other young men. Good men.” He paused, taking a sip of his whiskey. “I knew a few of them, the ones that died from it. They didn’t deserve to die like that: no-one does.”  _

_ It was only a glimpse, but Sherlock could’ve sworn he saw tears in his uncle’s eyes before the politician blinked, sat up straighter and cleared his throat. “Anyhow, being gay essentially means that you’re a man who is… attracted to other men, or a woman attracted to other women. You can also be bisexual and like men  _ and  _ women, or even transgender, when you identify with the opposite gender than what you were assigned at birth.”  _

_ “Is that what you are?” the teenager asked. Rudy shook his head slowly.  _

_ “No,” he said. “I identify as gender-fluid.”  _

_ “What does that mean?”  _

_ “Sometimes I’m a man, sometimes I’m a woman.”  _

_ “But isn’t stuff like that and being gay,” Sherlock leant forward and lowered his voice, “ _ dangerous _?”  _

_ Rudy barked out a laugh.  _

_ “It’s 1997!” he laughed. “Slowly but surely, the world is getting much more accepting. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if gay marriage is legal in twenty years’ time!”  _

_ Sherlock was very quiet and still, much like he was when he was thinking. His face was screwed up in concentration, and one hand played with the stress ball he had stowed in one pocket at all times.  _

_ “Uncle Rudy, I think… I might be gay,” he eventually said very quietly.  _

_ “Why do you think that?” Rudy asked gently.  _

_ “There’s this girl in my English class, Mary-Anne,” the teenager said, looking down at his hands. “She’s relatively clever, she’s funny and from what I’m told she’s very attractive.” He looked up. “But when I talk to her, I feel nothing. Yet when I look at Oscar from the rugby team…”  _

_ An almost goofy smile grew on his face, but he managed to shut it down pretty quickly, returning to his usual emotionless expression. “Is, um… is that okay?”  _

_ Rudy smiled, abandoning his whiskey and getting up from his armchair, pulling his nephew into a hug.  _

_ “Of course it is. I will always accept you, Sherlock. Remember that.”  _

There had been many-a-time during Sherlock’s adolescence when Violet had wished that Rudy lived with them. He could control Sherlock very well, and seemed to be able to make the boy open up. At the same time, though, she was glad that he didn’t: she would have hated for Rudy to have to see Sherlock stumble home as high as a kite for the third time in a week, and she was sure Sherlock would have as well. 

“Do you want me to get John for you?” she asked Sherlock, letting him sit back on the bed. He nodded, rubbing his eye with the heel of his hand. 

“Oh, and tell him to bring my earphones,” he said. “They should be in his right-hand pocket.” 

Violet nodded and, pressing a kiss to her son’s forehead, left to fetch the army doctor. 

888888

_ Later that night: 1.a.m  _

Sherlock was  _ still  _ playing his violin. 

Still. 

Now, John loved Sherlock, sure, but this was the twentieth time he was hearing “Sonata No. 9 ‘Kreutzer’” by Beethoven in… God, he’d lost track of time. True, it was hard and he was impressed, but my Lord, if he didn’t want to throttle the detective with his own violin strings! 

“Sherlock,” he groaned, throwing himself back in the bed. “Please. Come to bed, or I swear I will break that violin in half.” 

“Can’t sleep,” Sherlock said agitatedly, removing his bow from the strings and throwing it onto a chair in frustration. “Don’t you get it!?” 

“No, not really,” John replied. He was exhausted, and quite frankly just wanted to sleep. “Just come and hold me then? You know I can’t sleep if you’re not next to me.” 

Sherlock tried to shoot him a withering look, but it didn’t work because John put on his puppy-dog eyes and the detective could just feel himself melting. 

“Alright, fine!” he snapped, stalking over to the bed and shrugging off his blue dressing gown. 

“Thank you,” John said, snuggling up to his partner as soon as he got in the bed. “Love you.” 

“I love you too.” 

“Goodnight, Sherlock.” 

"Goodnight, love."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah, that was like half flashback. Hope you enjoyed. Don't hold out hopes on the next chapter being too quick XD. I'll try, people. I'll try. Please remember to leave comments and kudos <3

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 coming soon!


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